Part 30 (1/2)
”I thought perhaps you might have done so, and might possibly be inclined towards the vocation you so scornfully repudiated when I suggested it before. I intended to ask you yesterday, but it would not have been fair when you were so weak and shaken.”
The girl had glanced at him and had then flushed hotly.
”I don't know--I am not sure--what you mean.”
”And I am sure that you know very well, Mary, that I mean the vocation of taking care of me, which you repudiated with scorn--in fact refused to entertain it seriously at all. Of course there may have been other grounds, but the one you laid stress on was that I was lazy and purposeless, and that if you ever did take up such a vocation it would be to take care of some one you could respect. I don't say for an instant that I approach to that alt.i.tude, but at least I may say I am no longer an idler, that I have worked hard, and that I have every hope of success. You see, too, that I want you more than I did then. I am a poor artist and not the heir to a good estate. But as you are fond of sacrificing yourself, that may not be altogether an objection. At any rate, dear, I think I shall be able to keep you comfortably. I am not sure I should ever have mustered up courage enough to have spoken on this subject again, had it not been for yesterday. But that gave me a little hope that you really had come to care about me a little, and that possibly you might be willing to change your plans again in my favor.”
”I did not think you really loved me then,” she said. ”I thought it was just a pa.s.sing fancy.”
”You see it was not, dear. All these months that I have worked hard, it was partly from the love of art and with the hope that I might be a really great artist, but at the bottom of it all along has been the thought of you and the determination that in one respect I would become worthy of you.”
”Don't talk like that, Cuthbert. I know now that I was a headstrong, conceited girl, thinking I was strong when I was as weak as water. You were right when you said I was not yet a woman, for I had never found that I had a heart. It is I who am unworthy.”
”Well, it is no question of worthiness now. The question is do you love me as I love you.”
”Are you sure you do, Cuthbert? I have thought all these months that you had taken me at my word, and that it was but as a friend you regarded me. Are you sure it is not grat.i.tude for what little I did for you in the hospital! Still more that it is not because I showed my feelings so plainly the day before yesterday, and that it is from pity as well as grat.i.tude that you speak now.”
”Then you were really a little jealous, Mary?”
”You know I was. It was shameful of me to show it, so shameful that I have hated myself since. I know that after doing so, I ought to say no--no a thousand times. I love you, Cuthbert, I love you; but I would rather never marry you than feel it was out of pity that you took me.
That would be too hard to bear.”
They were both standing now.
”You are talking nonsense, child,” he said, tenderly, as he took her hand. ”You know I love you truly. Surely my pictures must have told you that. Honestly now, did you not feel that it was so?”
”I did not know you loved me then, Cuthbert. There were other things, you know, that made me feel it could not be so, but then that for the first time I really knew----” and she stopped.
”That you loved me, darling?” and he drew her closer to him. ”Now, you gave me a straightforward answer before--I insist on as straightforward a one now.”
And this time the answer was not, No.
”Mind,” he said a few minutes afterwards, ”your vocation is definitely fixed at last, Mary, and there must be no more changing.”
”As if you did not know there won't be,” she said, saucily. And then suddenly altering her tone she went on, ”Now, Cuthbert, you will surely tell me what you would not before. What did you find out? It is something about my father, I am sure.”
”Let me think before I answer you,” he said, and then sat silent for two or three minutes. ”Well,” he said, at last, ”I think you have a right to know. You may be sure that in any case I should before, for your sake, have done everything in my power towards arranging things amicably with him. Now, of course, that feeling is vastly stronger, and for my own sake as well as yours I should abstain from any action against him.
Mind, at present I have only vague suspicions, but if those suspicions turn out true, it will be evident that your father has been pursuing a very tortuous policy, to put it no stronger, in order to gain possession of Fairclose. I cannot say definitely as yet what I shall do, but at present I incline to the opinion that I shall drop the matter altogether.”
”Not for my sake, Cuthbert,” she said, firmly. ”I have always felt uneasy about it. I can scarcely say why, but I am afraid it is so. Of course I know my father better than people in general do. I have known that he was not what he seemed to be. It has always been my sorest trouble, that we have never got on well together. He has never liked me, and I have not been able to respect him. I know that if he has done anything absolutely wrong--it seems terrible that I should even think such a thing possible--but if it has been so--I know you will not expose him.”
”We will not talk any more about it, dear,” Cuthbert interrupted; ”it is all the vaguest suspicion, so let us put it aside altogether now. Just at present I am a great deal too happy to give as much as a thought to unpleasant matters. We have to attend to the business of the hour, and you have the two years of love of which I have been deprived to make up for.”
”I am very, very glad, Cuthbert, that I was not in love with you then.”
”Why?”
”Because we should have started all wrong. I don't think I should ever have come to look up to you and honor you as I do now. I should never have been cured of my silly ideas, and might even have thought that I had made some sort of sacrifice in giving up my plans. Besides, then you were what people call a good match, and now no one can think that it is not for love only.”