She stopped speaking; and two large tears crept from under her lashes.
"It must seem absurd to you—to everybody—that I should talk of troubles. I, in my easy existence! Yet things are not always exactly what they seem . . . I think I would give half my remaining years, if the choice were offered me, to have him back for one month. It would be—such rest. He loved me so truly. And nobody—"
"Don't say that. It is not quite real."
"Perhaps not in one sense; but in another—Jean, how can you enter into it all? I am so much older. There are different kinds of love; and some kinds don't meet one's craving . . . I suppose one cannot often have just what one would choose. Better not, some would say. I don't see that. I suppose the denial has to be—but to be loved is such a help! . . . Mr. Trevelyan said, in that calm cold manner of his—"
"Jem cold!!"
"Did I call him 'cold'? No, 'cold' is hardly the word. It means repulsion, and he does not repel. He wins one's confidence somehow—in an abstract sort of way. But his manner is so entirely self-mastered—as if he had reached a height beyond all passion of feeling. Almost as if nothing that merely touched himself could never ruffle him again. It is beautiful, of course; only a little chilly. That was what he was this morning—very kind, but just a degree chilly. He listened to me with such intense patience, and looked most gentle—as he does, you know—yet when he spoke, he was stern . . . He said life ought to be something better for me than drifting down the stream, and getting myself bruised among jagged rocks. He told me to take my oars, and row up the stream . . . And, of course, he is right—he is perfectly right! . . . If only I had energy to obey!"
"Jem is not stern or cold! Evelyn, what can you mean? You don't understand Jem."
"Do I not?" Two drops again shone on Evelyn's lashes, then dropped heavily? "How silly I am!" she said, with a laugh. "Like a baby! After all, what can I do in life that is different? I am set down here—tied to a place that I detest. Yes, I detest it, Jean. I never can love Dutton, even for my husband's sake. Sometimes I think I will abdicate—throw up everything, and install Thomas Villiers in my place. He is a man who would not abuse such a trust. Then I should be free, and I could go and work at the East-End. I have had for years a craving for that kind of life—a life of real hard work for others . . . My husband would not have chosen it for me, perhaps—to become a deaconess or sister, I mean. But where he is now—don't you think they see with other eyes? Things must look so different there! He will understand now—if he sees—the want in my life—the need for fresh interests . . . I should like to turn everything upside down, and to start afresh."
"Would that make you happier?"
"You think I should want the Park back as soon as I had given it up? O no—never. I am so weary of the place . . . Now I have talked enough about myself. It is a bad habit. No letters yet from our wanderers?"