Part 32 (2/2)
”Will you come back to Philip a moment?” she said, gently. ”Philip has told me what he proposed to you.”
Anderson could not find a word to say. In a blind tumult of feeling he caught her hand, and pressed his lips to it, as though appealing to her dumbly to understand him.
She smiled at him.
”It will be all right,” she whispered. ”My poor Philip!” and she led him back to the sick room.
”George--I wanted you to come back, to talk this thing out,” said Philip, turning to him as he entered, with the tyranny of weakness.
”There's no time to waste. You know--everybody knows--I may get worse--and there'll be nothing settled. It's my duty to settle--”
Elizabeth interrupted him.
”Philip darling!--”
She was hanging over his chair, while Anderson stood a few feet away, leaning against the mantelpiece, his face turned from the brother and sister. The intimacy--solemnity almost--of the sick-room, the midnight hour, seemed to strike through Elizabeth's being, deepening and yet liberating emotion.
”Dear Philip! It is not for Mr. Anderson to answer you--it is for me. If he could give up his country--for happiness--even for love--I should never marry him--for--I should not love him any more.”
Anderson turned to look at her. She had moved, and was now standing in front of Philip, her head thrown back a little, her hands lightly clasped in front of her. Her youth, her dress, her diamonds, combined strangely with the touch of high pa.s.sion in her s.h.i.+ning eyes, her resolute voice.
”You see, dear Philip, I love George Anderson--”
Anderson gave a low cry--and, moving to her side, he grasped her hand.
She gave it to him, smiling--and went on:
”I love him--partly--because he is so true to his own people--because I saw him first--and knew him first--among them. No! dear Philip, he has his work to do in Canada--in that great, great nation that is to be. He has been trained for it--no one else can do it but he--and neither you nor I must tempt him from it.”
The eyes of the brother and sister met. Elizabeth tried for a lighter tone.
”But as neither of us _could_ tempt him from it--it is no use talking--is it?”
Philip looked from her to Anderson in a frowning silence. No one spoke for a little while. Then it seemed to them as though the young man recognised that his effort had failed, and his physical weakness shrank from renewing it. But he still resisted his mother's attempt to put an end to the scene.
”That's all very well, Lisa,” he said at last, ”but what are you going to do?”
Elizabeth withdrew her hand from Anderson's.
”What am I going to do? _Wait_--just that!”
But her lip trembled. And to hide it she sank down again in the low chair in front of her brother, propping her face in both hands.
”Wait?” repeated Philip, scornfully--”and what for?”
”Till you and mother--come to my way of thinking--and”--she faltered--”till Mr. Anderson--”
Her voice failed her a moment. Anderson stood motionless, bending towards her, hanging upon her every gesture and tone.
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