Part 7 (1/2)

”I have thought of it often. Every one else that I know just lives the way things happen--there are only a few people who grasp things and _make_ them happen. That is real work; so many of us are just given work we do not want--” she broke off.

”If we do not want the work, it is probably not our own,” said Lestrange. ”Unless we have brought it on ourselves by a fault we must undo--I need not speak of that to you. One must not make the mistake of a.s.suming some one else's work.”

He spoke gently, almost as if with a clairvoyant reading of her tendency to self-immolation.

”But may not some one else's fault be given us to undo?” she asked eagerly. ”May not their work be forced on us?”

”No,” he answered.

”No?” bewildered.

”I don't think so. Each one of us has enough with his own, at least so it seems to me. Most of us die before we finish it.”

Emily paused, contending with the loneliness and doubts which impelled her to speech, the feminine yearning to let another decide her problems. This other's nonchalant strength of decision allured her uncertainty.

”I am discouraged,” she confessed. ”And tired. I--there is no reason why I should not speak of it. You know d.i.c.k, how he can do nothing in the factory or business, or in the places where a Ffrench should stand. All this must fall into the hands of strangers, to be broken and forgotten, when my uncle dies, for lack of some one who would care. And Uncle Ethan seems severe and hard, but it grieves him all the time. His only son was not a good man; he lives abroad with his wife, who was an actress before he married her. You knew that?” as he moved.

”I heard something of it in the village,” Lestrange admitted gravely.

”Please do not think me fond of gossip; I could not avoid it. But I should not have imagined this a family likely to make low marriages.”

”It never happened before. I never saw that cousin, nor did d.i.c.k; but he was always a disappointment, always, Uncle Ethan has told me. And since he failed, and d.i.c.k fails, there is only me.”

”You!”

She nodded, her lip quivering.

”Only me. Not as a subst.i.tute--I am not fit for that--but to find a subst.i.tute. I have promised my uncle to marry the first one who is able to be that.”

The silence was absolute. Lestrange neither moved nor spoke, gazing down at her bent head with an expression blending many shades.

”It is a duty; there is no one except me,” she added. ”Only sometimes I grow--to dislike it too much. I am so selfish that sometimes I hope a subst.i.tute will never come.”

Her voice died away. It was done; she, Emily Ffrench, had deliberately confided to this stranger that which an hour before she would have believed no one could force from her lips in articulate speech. And she neither regretted nor was ashamed, although there was time for full realization before Lestrange answered.

”I did not believe,” he said, ”that such things could be done. It is nonsense, of course, but such magnificent nonsense! It is the kind of situation, Miss Ffrench, where any man is justified in interfering. I beg you will leave the affair in my hands and think no more of such morbid self-sacrifice.”

Stupefied, Emily flung back her head, staring at him.

”In _your_ hands?”

”Since there are none better, it appears. Why,” his vivid face questioned her full and straightly, ”you didn't imagine that any man living could hear what you are doing, and pa.s.s on?”

”My uncle knows--”

”Your uncle--is not for me to criticize. But do not ask any other man to let you go on.”

Her ideas reeling, she struggled for comprehension.

”You, what could you do?” she marveled. ”The subst.i.tute--”