Part 16 (1/2)
”How glad I am to see you! You did not hurry, I hope. You are quite out of breath. Why did you walk so fast?”
”I did not walk fast until I saw you under the trees, Miss Harman. I thought I should have time enough, for I imagined I should have to wait for you.”
”What an unreasonable thing to suppose of me! I am the idle one, you the busy. No: I respect wives and mothers too much to treat them in that fas.h.i.+on.” Miss Harman smiled as she spoke.
Mrs. Home did not outwardly respond to the smile, though the gracious bearing, the loving, sweet face were beginning very slowly to effect a thaw, for some hard little ice lumps in her heart were melting. The immediate effect of this was, however, so strong a desire to cry that, to steel herself against these untimely tears, she became in manner harder than ever.
”And now what shall we do?” said Charlotte Harman. ”The carriage is waiting for us at the next gate; shall we go for a drive, or shall we walk about here?”
”I would rather walk here,” said Mrs. Home.
”Very well. Charlotte, I am glad to see you. And how are your children?”
”Harold has a cold. The other two are very well.”
”I never saw sweeter children in my life. And do you know I met your husband? He and your children both spoke to me in the park. It was the day before I came to your house. Mr. Home gave me a very short sermon to think over. I shall never forget it.”
”He saw you and liked you,” answered Mrs. Home. ”He told me of that meeting.”
”And I want another meeting. Such a man as that has never come into my life before. I want to see more of him. Charlotte, why did you propose that we should meet here? Why not in my house, or in yours? I wanted to come to you again. I was much disappointed when I got your note.”
”I am sorry to have disappointed you; but I thought it best that we should meet here.”
”But why? I don't understand.”
”They say that rich people are obtuse. I did not want to see your riches, nor for you to behold the poverty of my land.”
”Charlotte!”
”Please don't think me very hard, but I would rather you did not say Charlotte.”
”You would rather I did not say Charlotte?”
Two large tears of surprise and pain filled Miss Harman's gray eyes. But such a great flood of weeping was so near the surface with the other woman that she dared not look at her.
”I would rather you did not say Charlotte,” she repeated, ”for we call those whom we love and are friendly with by their Christian names.”
”I thought you loved me. You said so. You can't take back your own words.”
”I don't want to. I do love you in my heart. I feel I could love you devotedly; but for all that we can never be friends.”
Miss Harman was silent for a moment or two, then she said slowly, but with growing pa.s.sion in her voice, ”Ah! you are thinking of that wretched money. I thought love ranked higher than gold all the world over.”
”So it does, or appears to do, for those who all their lives have had plenty; but it is just possible, just possible, I say, that those who are poor, poor enough to know what hunger and cold mean, and have seen their dearest wanting the comforts that money can buy, it is possible that such people may prefer their money rights to the profession of empty love.”
”Empty love!” repeated Miss Harman. The words stung her. She was growing angry, and the anger became this stately creature well. With cheeks and eyes both glowing she turned to her companion. ”If you and I are not to part at once, and never meet again, there must be very plain words between us. Shall I speak those words?” she asked.
”I came here that our words might be very plain,” answered Mrs. Home.
”They shall be,” said Charlotte Harman.