第26章

He hesitated, as if still uncertain of her mood from this intonation, and then he went on: "But I had some little hope you would tolerate me, after all. You looked like a friend I used to have. --Do you mind my telling you?"

"Oh, no. Though I can't say that it's ever very comfortable to be told that you look like some one else."

"I don't suppose any one else would have been struck by the resemblance," said Libby, with a laugh of reminiscence. "He was huge. But he had eyes like a girl,--I beg your pardon,--like yours."

"You mean that I have eyes like a man."

He laughed, and said, "No," and then turned grave. "As long as he lived"--"Oh, is he dead?" she asked more gently than she had yet spoken.

"Yes, he died just before I went abroad. I went out on business for my father,--he's an importer and jobber,--and bought goods for him. Do you despise business?"

"I don't know anything about it."

"I did it to please my father, and he said I was a very good buyer. He thinks there's nothing like buying--except selling. He used to sell things himself, over the counter, and not so long ago, either.

I fancied it made a difference for me when I was in college, and that the yardstick came between me and society. I was an ass for thinking anything about it. Though I did n't really care, much. I never liked society, and I did like boats and horses. I thought of a profession, once. But it would n't work. I've been round the world twice, and I've done nothing but enjoy myself since I left college,--or try to. When I first saw you I was hesitating about letting my father make me of use.

He wants me to become one of the most respectable members of society, he wants me to be a cotton-spinner. You know there 's nothing so irreproachable as cotton, for a business?"

"No. I don't know about those things."

"Well, there is n't. When I was abroad, buying and selling, I made a little discovery: I found that there were goods we could make and sell in the European market cheaper than the English, and that gave my father the notion of buying a mill to make them. I'm boring you!"

"No."

"Well, he bought it; and he wants me to take charge of it."

"And shall you?"

"Do you think I'm fit for it?"

"I? How should I know?"

"You don't know cotton; but you know me a little. Do I strike you as fit for anything?" She made no reply to this, and he laughed. "I assure you I felt small enough when I heard what you had done, and thought--what I had done. It gave me a start; and I wrote my father that night that I would go in for it."

"I once thought of going to a factory town," she answered, without wilful evasion, "to begin my practice there among the operatives' children. I should have done it if it had not been for coming here with Mrs. Maynard.

It would have been better."

"Come to my factory town, Miss Breen! There ought to be fevers there in the autumn, with all the low lands that I'm allowed to flood Mrs. Maynard told me about your plan."

"Pray, what else did Mrs. Maynard tell you about me?"

"About your taking up a profession, in the way you did, when you needn't, and when you did n't particularly like it."

"Oh!" she said. Then she added, "And because I was n't obliged to it, and did n't like it, you tolerated me?"

"Tolerated?" he echoed.

This vexed her. "Yes, tolerate! Everybody, interested or not, has to make up his mind whether to tolerate me as soon as he hears what I am.

What excuse did you make for me?"

"I did n't make any," said Libby.

"But you had your misgiving, your surprise."

"I thought if you could stand it, other people might. I thought it was your affair."

"Just as if I had been a young man?"

"No! That wasn't possible."

She was silent. Then, "The conversation has- got back into the old quarter," she said. "You are talking about me again. Have you heard from your friends since they went away?"

"What friends?"

"Those you were camping with."

"No."

"What did they say when they heard that you had found a young doctress at Jocelyn's? How did you break the fact to them? What jokes did they make? You need n't be afraid to tell me!" she cried. "Give me Mr. Johnson's comments."

He looked at her in surprise that incensed her still more, and rendered her incapable of regarding the pain with which he answered her. "I 'm afraid," he said, "that I have done something to offend you."

"Oh no! What could you have done?"

"Then you really mean to ask me whether I would let any one make a joke of you in my presence?"

"Yes; why not?"

"Because it was impossible," he answered.

"Why was it impossible?" she pursued.

"Because--I love you."

She had been looking him defiantly in the eyes, and she could not withdraw her gaze. For the endless moment that ensued, her breath was taken away. Then she asked in a low, steady voice, "Did you mean to say that?"

"No."

"I believe you, and I forgive you. No, no!" she cried, at a demonstration of protest from him, "don't speak again!"

He obeyed, instantly, implicitly. With the tiller in his hand he looked past her and guided the boat's course. It became intolerable.

"Have I ever done anything that gave you the right to--to--say that?" she asked, without the self-command which she might have wished to show.

"No," he said, "you were only the most beautiful"--"I am not beautiful! And if I were"--"It wasn't to be helped! I saw from the first how good and noble you were, and"--"This is absurd!" she exclaimed. "I am neither good nor noble; and if I were"--"It wouldn't make any difference. Whatever you are, you are the one woman in the world to me; and you always will be."

"Mr. Libby!"

"Oh, I must speak now! You were always thinking, because you had studied a man's profession, that no one would think of you as a woman, as if that could make any difference to a man that had the soul of a man in him!"

"No, no!" she protested. "I did n't think that. I always expected to be considered as a woman."

"But not as a woman to fall in love with. I understood. And that somehow made you all the dearer to me. If you had been a girl like other girls, I should n't have cared for you."

"Oh!"