Роберт Чамберс - The Hidden Children

"I do prefer you!" I cried, furious to be so misconstrued. "I love only one, and that one is you!"

"Oh, Euan, yours is a most broad and catholic heart; and any pretty penitent can find her refuge there; and any petticoat can flutter it!"

"Yours can. Even your fluttering rags did that!"

She flushed: "Oh, if I were truly weak and silly enough to listen to you―"

"You never do. You give me no hope."

"I do give you hope! I am ever ladling it out to you as they ladle soupaan to the militia! I say to you continually that never have I so devotedly loved any man―"

"That is not love!" I said, furious.

"I do not pretend it to be that same boiling and sputtering sentiment which men call love―"

"Then if it be not true love, why do you care what I whisper to any woman?"

"I do not care," she said, biting the rose–leaf lower lip. "You may whisper any treason you please to any h–heartless woman who snares your f–fancy."

"You do not truly care?"

"I have said it. No, I do not care! Court whom you please! But if you do, my faith in man is dead, and that's flat!"

"What!"

"Certainly…. After your burning vows so lately made to me. But men have no shame. I know that much."

"But," said I, bewildered, "you say that you care nothing for my vows!"

"Did I say so?"

"Yes—you―"

"No, I did not say so!…I—I love your vows."

"How can you love my vows and not me?" I demanded angrily.

"I don't know I can do it, but I do…. But I will love them no longer if you make the selfsame vows to her."

"Now," said I, perplexed and exasperated, "what does it profit a man when a maid confesses that she loves to hear his vows, but loves not him who makes them?"

"For me to love even your vows," said she, looking at me sideways, "is something gained for you—or so it seems to me. And were I minded to play the coquette—as some do―"

"You play it every minute!"

"I? When, pray?"

"When I came to Croghan's this afternoon there were you the centre of 'em all; and one ass in boots and spurs to wave your fan for you—oh, la! And another of Franklin's, in his Wyandotte finery, to fetch and carry; and a dozen more young fools all ogling and sighing at your feet―"

Her lips parted in a quick, nervous laugh:

"Was that the way I seemed? Truly, Euan? Were you jealous? And I scarce heeding one o' them, but my eyes on the doorway, watching for you!"

"Oh, Lois! How can you say that to me―"

"Because it was so! Why did you not come to me at once? I was waiting!"

"There were so many—and you seemed so gay with them—so careless—not even glancing at me―"

"I saw you none the less. I never let you escape the range of my vision."

"I never dreamed you noticed me. And every time you smiled on one of them I grew the gloomier―"

"And what does my gaiety mean—save that the source of happiness lies rooted in you? What do other men count, only that in their admiration I read some recompense for you, who made me admirable. These gowns I wear are yours—these shoon and buckles and silken stockings—these bows of lace and furbelows—this little patch making my rose cheeks rosier—this frost of powder on my hair! All these I wear, Euan, so that man's delight in me may do you honour. All I am to please them—my gaiety, my small wit, which makes for them crude verses, my modesty, my decorum, my mind and person, which seem not unacceptable to a respectable society—all these are but dormant qualities that you have awakened and inspired―"

She broke off short, tears filling her eyes:

"Of what am I made, then, if my first and dearest and deepest thought be not for you? And such a man as this is jealous!"

I caught her hands, but she bent swiftly and laid her hot cheek for an instant against my hand which held them.

"If there is in me a Cinderella," she said unsteadily, "it is you who have discovered it—liberated it—and who have willed that it shall live. Did you suppose that it was in me to make those verses unless you told me that I could do it? You said, 'Try,' and instantly I dared try…. Is that not something to stir your pride? A girl as absolutely yours as that? And do not the lesser and commonplace emotions seem trivial in comparison—all the heats and passions and sentimental vapours—the sighs and vows and languishing all the inevitable trappings and masqueradings which bedizzen what men know as love—do they not all seem mean and petty compared to our deep, sweet knowledge of each other?"

"You are wonderful," I said humbly. "But love is no unreal, unworthy thing, either; no sham, no trite cut–and–dried convention, made silly by sighs and vapours.

"Oh, Euan, it is! I am so much more to you in my soul than if I merely loved you. You are so much more to me—the very well–spring of my desire and pride—my reason for pleasing, my happy consolation and my gratitude…. Seat yourself here on the pleasant, scented grasses and let me endeavour to explain it once and for all time. Will you?

"It is this," she continued, taking my hand between hers, when we were seated, and examining it very intently, as though the screed she recited were written there on my palm. "We are so marvelously matched in every measurement and feature, mental and bodily almost—and I am so truly becoming a vital part of you and you of me, that the miracle is too perfect, too lofty, too serenely complete to vex it with the lesser magic—the passions and the various petty vexations they entail.

"For I would become—to honour you—all that your pride would have me. I would please the world for your sake, conquer it both with mind and person. And you must endeavour to better yourself, day by day, nobly and with high aim, so that the source of my inspiration remain ever pure and fresh, and I attain to heights unthinkable save for your faith in me and mine in you."

She smiled at me, and I said:

"Aye; but to what end?"

"To what end, Euan? Why, for our spiritual and worldly profit."

"Yes, but I love you―"

"No, no! Not in that manner―"

"But it is so."

"No, it is not! We are to be above mere sentiment. Reason rules us."

"Are we not to wed?"

"Oh—as for that―" She thought for a while, closely considering my palm. "Yes—that might some day be a part of it…. When we have attained to every honour and consideration, and our thoughts and desires are purged and lifted to serene and lofty heights of contemplation. Then it would be natural for us to marry, I suppose."

"Meanwhile," said I, "youth flies; and I may not lay a finger on you to caress you."

"Not to caress me—as that woman did to you―"

"Lois!"

"I can not help it. There is in her—in all such women—a sly, smooth, sleek and graceful beast, ever seeming to invite or offer a caress―"

"She is sweet and womanly; a warm friend of many years."

"Oh! And am I not—womanly?"

"Are you, entirely?"

She looked at me troubled:

"How would you have me be more womanly?"

"Be less a comrade, more a sweetheart."

"Familiar?"

My heart was beating fast:

"Familiar to my arms. I love you."

"I—do not permit myself to desire your arms. Can I help saying so—if you ask me?"

"When I love you so―"

"No. Why are you, after all, like other men, when I once hoped―"

"Other men love. All men love. How can I be different―"

"You are more finely made. You comprehend higher thoughts. You can command your lesser passions."

"You say that very lightly, who have no need to command yours!"

"How do you know?" she said in a low voice.

"Because you have none to curb—else you could better understand the greater ones."

She sat with head lowered, playing with a blade of grass. After a while she looked up at me, a trifle confused.