Part 9 (2/2)
”As this chance has come,” he said humbly, ”I avail myself of it. Though I could never thank you sufficiently, I have been longing for an opportunity to thank you _somehow_ for the confidence you have reposed in me.”
”I'm sure you'll justify it, Mr. Marsden.”
”I don't know. I'm afraid you'll think not--when you hear the dreadful confession that I have to make.”
Mrs. Thompson drew in her breath, and stopped short on the footpath.
”Mr. Marsden”--she spoke quite gently and kindly--”You really must not tell me about your private affairs. Unless your confession concerns business matters--something to do with the shop--I cannot listen to it.”
”Oh, it only amounts to this--but I know it will sound ungrateful ...
Mrs. Thompson, in spite of everything, of all you have done for me, I am not very happy down here.”
”Indeed?” She had drawn in her breath again, and she walked on while she spoke. ”Does that mean that you are thinking of leaving us?”
”Yes, I sometimes think of that.”
”To better yourself?”
”Oh, no--I should never find such another situation.”
”Then why are you discontented in this one?”
With the permission conveyed by her question, he described at length his queer state of mind--a man on whom fortune had smiled, a man with work that he liked, yet feeling restless and unhappy, feeling alone in the midst of a crowd, longing for sympathy, yearning for companions.h.i.+p.
”That's how I feel,” he said sadly, after a long explanation.
Mrs. Thompson had been looking away from him, staring across the river.
She held herself rigidly erect, and she spoke now in another voice, with a tone of hardness and coldness.
”I think I recognize the symptoms, Mr. Marsden. When a young man talks like this, the riddle is easy to guess.”
”Then guess it.”
”Well,” she said coldly, ”you force me to the only supposition. You are telling me that you have fallen in love.”
”Yes.”
She winced almost as if he had struck her; and then the parted lips closed, her whole face a.s.sumed a stonelike dignity.
”Tell me all about it, Mr. Marsden--since you seem to wish to.”
”Love is a great crisis in a man's life. It generally makes him or breaks him forever.”
”I hope that fate will read kindly--in your case.”
”He either fears his fate too much or his deserts are small--But, Mrs.
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