Part 21 (1/2)
”My dear, suffering prepares us for the better life. It makes us more thankful.”
”I do not know that,” she said with energy. ”Sometimes it may harden us.
We may be kept from food so long that we have no manners when we come to the table.”
”Gunhild, that is a very good remark--a thoughtful remark, true in the main, but not ill.u.s.trative of the point I wish to make. But you are so full of hope that--”
”Full of hope, madam?”
”Yes, the hope that rises from health and strength. You have so much to look forward to. You might make a brilliant match.”
”Then I must hope that sometime I may sell myself?”
”Oh, no, no. I didn't mean that. I mean that you have prospects. Shall I be plain? You have the prospects of loving one man and marrying another.
That is called a brilliant match, I believe. Or, at least, it is a feature of nearly all brilliant matches. Don't you think so?”
”I am not supposed to know, madam.”
”Not even to please me?”
”Oh, if it please you, I am supposed to know everything.”
”Good. Then tell me what you know about Mr. Milford. You understand that it is my mission to find interest in nearly all--well, I might say, odd persons. You have met him when I was not with you. And he must have told you something.”
”He has told me nothing that I can repeat.”
”Oh, is it that bad?”
”Is what that bad, Mrs. Goodwin? I do not understand what you mean by that bad. Perhaps what he told me did not make enough impression to be remembered.”
”But didn't he say things you did not remember, but continued to feel?”
”Yes, I believe so. You know that I do not understand men very well. I do not understand any one very well. They make remarks about him and say that he is mysterious, but he is plainer to me than any one. Somehow I feel with him. He has had a hard life, I think, and that brings him closer to me.”
”Ah, my dear, the suffering I spoke of just now.”
”But,” the girl added, ”I do not know that his hard life has made him any better.”
”Perhaps not. But it must have made him more thoughtful. After all, I'm not so much interested in him. He is one of the characters that throw a side-light on our lives. He can never take an essential part in our affairs. Do you think so?”
”I must again say that I do not understand.”
”Why, don't you know that we meet many persons, and become quite well acquainted with them, and yet never feel that they belong to our atmosphere? They are not necessary to the story of our lives, so to speak, and yet that atmosphere of which they are not really a part, would not be wholly complete without them. They stand ready for our side talks; sometimes they even flip a sentiment at us. We catch it, trim it with ribbons and hand it back. They keep it; we forget. The Blakemores are such persons. We may never see them again--may almost wholly forget them, and yet something that we have said may influence their lives. And perhaps to Mr. Milford, we are but side-lights. He may soon be in his saddle again, forgetting that he ever knew us. But are we to forget him? Has his light been strong enough to dazzle us?”
”I shall not forget him, madam.”
”Then he may have made himself essential to the story of your life.”
”He has made himself a part of my recollection.”
”No more than that? Sometimes we recall because it is no trouble, and sometimes we remember with pain. You know, Gunhild, that I think a great deal of you.”