Part 53 (1/2)
She is a woman; she could not but listen. She cannot want to bring misery on them both.”
”No,” said he, with a little show of authority. ”Whatever we may try--not that. I have heard that Miss Burgoyne has a bit of a temper.”
”I am not afraid,” said his companion, simply.
”No, no. If that were the only way, I should propose to go to Miss Burgoyne myself,” he said. ”But, you see, the awkward thing is that neither you nor I have any right to appeal to her, so long as Linn is willing to fulfil the engagement. We don't know her; we could not remonstrate as a friend of her own might. If we were to interfere on his behalf, she would immediately turn to him; and he is determined not to back out.”
”Then what is to be done, Mr. Mangan?” she exclaimed, in despair.
”I--I don't quite see at present,” he answered her. ”I thought I would talk it over with you, Miss Francie. I thought there might be something in that; that the way might seem clearer. But I see no way at all, unless you were to go to him yourself. He would listen to you. Or he might even listen to me, if I represented to him that you were distressed at the condition of affairs. At present he doesn't appear to care what happens to him.”
They had crossed the common; they had come to the foot of the wood; and they did not go on to the highway, for Miss Francie suggested that the sylvan path was the more interesting. And so they pa.s.sed in among the trees, making their way through the straggling undergrowth, while the soft March wind blew moist and sweet all around them, and the blackbirds and thrushes filled the world with their silver melody, and in the more distant woods the ringdoves crooned. Maurice Mangan followed her--in silence. Perhaps he was thinking of Lionel; perhaps he was thinking of the confession she had made in crossing the common; at all events, he did not address her; and when she stooped to gather some hyacinths and anemones he merely waited for her. But as they drew near to the farther end of the coppice the path became clearer, and now he walked by her side.
”Miss Francie,” he said (and it was _his_ eyes that were cast down now), ”you were speaking of the ideals that girls in the country may form for themselves--and girls everywhere, I dare say; but don't you think it rather hard?”
”What is?”
”Why, that you should raise up an impossible standard, and that poor common human beings, with all their imperfections and disqualifications, are sent to the right about.”
”Oh, no,” Miss Francie said, cheerfully. ”You don't understand at all. A girl does not form her ideal out of her own head. She is not clever enough to do that; or, rather, she is not stupid enough to try to do that. She takes her ideal from some one she knows--from the finest type of character she has met; so that it is not an impossible standard, for one person, at least, has attained to it.”
”And, for the sake of that one, she discards all those unfortunates who, by their age or appearance or lack of position or lack of distinction, cannot hope to come near,” he said, rather absently. ”Isn't that hard?
It makes all sorts of things so hopeless, so impossible. You put your one chosen friend on this pedestal; and then all the others, who might wish to win your regard, they know what the result of comparison would be, and they go away home and hide their heads.”
”I don't see, Mr. Mangan,” she said, in a somewhat low voice, and yet a little proudly too, ”why you should fear comparison with any one--no, not with any one; or imagine that anything could--could displace you in the regard of your friends.”
He hesitated again--anxious, eager, and yet afraid. At last he said, rather sadly,
”I wish I knew something of your ideals, and how far away beyond human possibility they are.”
”Oh, I can tell you,” she said, plucking up heart of grace, for here was an easy way out of an embarra.s.sing position. ”My ideal woman is Sister Alexandra, of the East London Hospital. She was down here last Sunday--sweeter, more angelic than ever. That is the n.o.blest type of woman I know. And I was so glad she enjoyed her rare holiday; and when she went away in the evening we had her just loaded with flowers for her ward.”
”And the ideal man?”
”Oh,” said Miss Francie, hurriedly, ”I hardly know about that. Of course, when I--when I spoke of Linn a little while ago, I did not wish to say anything against him--certainly not--no one admires his better qualities more than I do--but--but there may be other qualities--”
They were come to the wooden gate opening on to the highway; he paused ere he lifted the latch.
”Francie,” said he, ”do you think that some day you might be induced to put aside all your high standards and ideals, and--and--in short, accept a battered old journalist, without money, position, distinction, without any graces, except this, that grat.i.tude might add something to his affection for you?”
Tears sprang into her eyes, and yet there was a smile there, too; she was not wholly frightened--perhaps she had known all along.
”Ah, and you don't understand yet, Maurice!” she said, and she frankly gave him her hand, and her eyes were kind even through her tears. ”You don't understand what I have been saying to you, that a girl's ideal is one particular person--her ideal is the man or woman whom she admires and loves the most. Can you not guess?”
”Francie, you will be my wife?” he said to her, drawing her closer to him, his hands clasped round her head.
She did not answer. She was silent for a second or two. And then she said, with averted eyes,
”You spoke of grat.i.tude, Maurice. I know who has the most reason to be grateful--and who will try the hardest to show it.”