Bel did not ask him in to sit down; she stood just within the doorway, and talked with him.
He made some friendly inquiries that led to conversation; he drew her to say something of her plans. He had not come on purpose; he hardly knew what he had come for. He had only knocked to say a word of kindness; to look in the poor, pretty little face that he felt such a tenderness for.
"I can't bear to give things up,—because they were pleasant," Bel said. "But I suppose I shall have to go away. It isn't home; there isn't anybody to make home with any more. I know what I had thought of, a while ago; I believe I know what there is that I might do; I am just waiting until the thoughts come back, and begin to look as they did. Nothing looks as it did yet."
"Nothing?" asked Morris Hewland, his eyes questioning of hers.
"Yes,—friends. But the friends are all outside, after all."
Hewland stood silent.
How beautiful it might be to make home for such a little heart as this! To surround her with comfort and prettiness, such as she loved and knew how to contrive out of so little! To say,—"Let us belong together. Make home with me!"
Satan, as an angel of light, entered into him. He knew he could not say this to her as he ought to say it; as he would say it to a girl of his own class whom father and mother would welcome. There was no girl of his own class he had ever cared to say it to. This was the first woman he had found, with whom the home thought joined itself. And this could not rightly be. If he took her, he would no longer have the things to give her. They would be cast out together. And all he could do was to make pictures, of which he had never sold one, or thought to sell one, in all his life. He would be just as poor as she was; and he felt that he did not know how to be poor. Besides, he wanted to be rich for her. He wanted to give her,—now, right off,—everything.
Why shouldn't he give? Why shouldn't she take? He had plenty of money; he was his father's only son. He meant right; so he said to himself; and what had the world to do with it?
"I wish I could take care of you, Bel! Would you let me? Would you go with me?"