Volume Ii Part 18 (1/2)
”You think I should do myself more harm, than good to anybody else?”
”No.--Only it would be serious,” she repeated after a pause.
Instantly he dropped the subject as far as his own action was concerned. He led her back into discussion of other people, and of the situation in general.
Then suddenly, as they talked, a host of thoughts fled cloud-like, rising and melting, through Marcella's memory. She remembered with what prestige--considering his youth and inexperience--he had entered Parliament, the impression made by the short and brilliant campaign of his election. Now, since the real struggle of the session had begun, his energies seemed to have been unaccountably in abeyance, and eclipse.
People she noticed had ceased to talk of him. But supposing, after all, there had been a crisis of mind and conviction underlying it?--supposing that now, at the last moment, in a situation that cried out for a leader, something should suddenly release his powers and gifts to do their proper work--
It vexed her to realise her own excitement, together with an odd shrinking and reluctance that seemed to be fighting with it. All in a moment, to Tressady's astonishment, she recalled the conversation to the point where it had turned aside.
”And you think--you _really_ think”--her voice had a nervous appealing note--”that even at this eleventh hour--No, I don't understand!--I _can't_ understand!--why, or how you should still think it possible to change things enough!”
He felt a sting of pleasure, and the pa.s.sing sense of hurt pride was soothed. At least he had conquered her attention, her curiosity!
”I am sure that anything might still happen,” he said stubbornly.
”Well, only let it be settled!” she said, trying to speak lightly, ”else there will be nothing left of some of us.”
She raised her hand, and pushed back her hair with a childish gesture of weariness, that was quite unconscious, and therefore touching.
As she spoke, indeed, the thought of a strong man hara.s.sed with overwork, and patiently preparing to lay down his baffled task, and all his cherished hopes, captured her mind, brought a quick rush of tears even to her eyes. Tressady looked at her; he saw the moisture in the eyes, the reddening of the cheek, the effort for self-control.
”Why do you let yourself feel it so much?” he said resentfully; ”it is not natural, nor right.”
”That's our old quarrel, isn't it?” she answered, smiling.
He was staring at the ground again, poking with his stick.
”There are so many things one _must_ feel,” he said in a bitter low voice; ”one may as well try to take politics calmly.”
She looked down upon him, understanding, but not knowing how to meet him, how to express herself. His words and manner were a confession of personal grief,--almost an appeal to her,--the first he had ever made.
Yet how to touch the subject of his marriage! She shrank from it painfully. What ominous, disagreeable things she had heard lately of the young Lady Tressady from people she trusted! Why, oh! why had he ruined his own life in such a way!
And with the yearning towards all suffering which was natural to her, there mingled so much else--inevitable softness and grat.i.tude for that homage towards herself, which had begun to touch and challenge all the loving, responsive impulse which was at the root of her character--an eager wish to put out a hand and guide him--all tending to shape in her this new longing to rouse him to some critical and courageous action, action which should give him at least the joy that men get from the strenuous use of natural powers, from the realisation of themselves. And through it all the most divinely selfish blindness to the real truth of the situation! Yet she tried not to think of Maxwell--she wished to think only of and for her friend.
After his last words they stood side by side in silence for a few moments. But the expression of her eyes, of her att.i.tude, was all sympathy. He must needs feel that she cared, she understood, that his life, his pain, his story mattered to her. At last she said, turning her face away from him, and from the few people who had not yet left the garden to go and listen to some music that was going on in the drawing-room:
”Sometimes, the best way to forget one's own troubles--don't you think?--is to put something else first for a time--perhaps in your case, the public life and service. Mightn't it be? Suppose you thought it all really out, what you have been saying to me--gave yourself up to it--and then _determined_. Perhaps afterwards--”
She paused--overcome with doubt, even shyness--and very pale too, as she turned to him again. But so beautiful! The very perplexity which spoke in the gently quivering face as it met his, made her lovelier in his eyes.
It seemed to strike down some of the barrier between them, to present her to him as weaker, more approachable.
But after waiting a moment, he gave a little harsh laugh.
”Afterwards, when one has somehow settled other people's affairs, one might see straighter in one's own? Is that what you mean?”
”I meant,” she said, speaking with difficulty, ”what I have often found--myself--that it helps one sometimes, to throw oneself altogether into something outside one's own life, in a large disinterested way.
Afterwards, one comes back to one's own puzzles--with a fresh strength and hope.”