THE EUROPEANS.
189
own sake as for that of the amatory passion itself.
If this was love, love had been over-rated. Love
was a poetic impulse, and his own state of feeling
with regard to the Baroness was largely characterized
by that eminently prosaic sentiment—curiosity, lit
was true, as Acton with his quietly cogitative habit
observed to himself, that curiosity, pushed to a
given point, might become a romantic passion; and
he certainly thought enough about this charming
woman to make him restless and even a little
melancholy. It puzzled and vexed him at times to
feel that he was not more ardent. He was not in
the least bent upon remaining a bachelor. In his
younger years he had been—or he had tried to be
—of the opinion that it would be a good deal
"jollier" not to marry, and he had flattered himself
that his single condition was something of a citadel.
It was a citadel, at all events, of which he had long
since levelled the outworks. He had removed the
guns from the ramparts; he had lowered the draw-
bridge across the moat. The draw-bridge had
swayed lightly under Madame Monster's step; why
should he not cause it to be raised again, so that
she might be kept prisoner? He had an idea that
she would become—in time at least, and on learn-
ing the conveniences of the place for making a lady
comfortable—a tolerably patient captive.    But the