11
“My dear!”
The tall figure, radiant, lit from head to foot, “as the light on a falling wave” ... “as the light on a falling wave.” ...
Everything stood still as they gazed at each other. Her own self gazed at her out of Miss Dear’s eyes.
“Well I’m bothered” said Miriam at last, sinking into a chair.
“No need to be bothered any more dear” laughed Miss Dear.
“It’s extraordinary.” She tried to recover the glory of the first moment in speechless contemplation of the radiant figure now moving chairs near to the lamp. The disappearance of the gas, the shaded lamp, the rector’s wife’s manner, the rector’s wife’s quiet stylish costume; it was like a prepared scene. How funny it would be to know a rector’s wife.
“He’s longing to meet you. I shall have a second room to-morrow. We will have a tea party.”
“Just before you came” said Miss Dear her glowing face bent, her hands brushing at the new costume. “You’ll be our greatest friend.”
“But how grand you are.”
“He made my future his care some days ago dear. As long as I live you shall want for nothing he said.”
“And to-day it all came out.”
“Of course he’ll have to get a living dear. But we’ve decided to ignore the world.”
What did she mean by that.... “You won’t have to.”
“Well dear I mean let the world go by.”
“I see. He’s a jewel. I think you’ve made a very good choice. You can make your mind easy about that. I saw the great medicine man to-day.”
“It was all settled without that dear. I never even thought about him.”
“You needn’t. No woman need. He’s a man who doesn’t know his own mind and never will. I doubt very much whether he has a mind to know. If he ever marries he will marry a wife, not any particular woman; a smart worldly woman for his profession, or a thoroughly healthy female who’ll keep a home in the country for him and have children and pour out his tea and grow things in the garden, while he flirts with patients in town. He’s most awfully susceptible.”
“I expect we shan’t live in London.”
“Well that’ll be better for you won’t it?”
“How do you mean de-er?”
“Well. I ought to tell you Dr. Densley told me you ought to go abroad.”
“There’s no need for me to go abroad dear, I shall be all right if I can look after myself and get into the air.”
“I expect you will. Everything’s happened just right hasn’t it?”
“It’s all been in the hands of an ’igher power, dear.”
Miriam found herself chafing again. It had all rushed on, in a few minutes. It was out of her hands completely now. She did not want to know Mr. and Mrs. Taunton. There was nothing to hold her any longer. She had seen Miss Dear in the new part. To watch the working out of it, to hear about the parish, sudden details about people she did not know—intolerable.