"She will not. I have no power over aunt Sybella. We repel one another at every point. Isn't there a sort of mutual repulsion between certain people?" Evelyn tried to laugh. "I think I shall grow a bad temper here. I never knew that I had one before; but she makes me naughty. Do things lie dormant in us sometimes, till we get into a new atmosphere? Aunt Sybella will be my temper-growing atmosphere, I am afraid. If people love me, and I love them, I can be vexed at nothing. Real love doesn't get vexed, you know. But she—oh, she makes it so hard to be good; so hard to do right."
General Villiers might have whispered patience to the tried young spirit. He might have told her that the very "atmosphere" which threatened to develop a temper ought rather to be the means of developing a spirit of endurance. He might have suggested that one can never learn to bear bravely and Christianly, without having something to bear. He might have reminded her that life and its surroundings are modelled for each individual by ONE who knows that individual's need. But his overwhelming sense of sympathy prevented a dispassionate view of matters.
While feeling for Evelyn, he ought also to have felt for Sybella. The very weakness of character and narrowness of intellect, which made her so trying a companion for Evelyn, added to her perplexities in dealing with Evelyn. She was much to be pitied for those perplexities, and for the enervating education which had fostered her natural feebleness.
General Villiers could not see Sybella's side. He had eyes only for Evelyn's trouble.
The past two months of constant intercourse with this young girl, fresh from school, had worked a revolution in his being. After long years of widowhood, wherein no thought of marrying again had come to the fore, he found himself passionately in love with a pretty creature, not yet eighteen, a complete child in comparison with himself!
The thing was wild, of course; inconceivable. The idea of marriage could not be cherished for a moment. General Villiers had not cherished it thus far. He had scarcely even admitted to himself that he loved, other than in a fatherly way. Or if at times he allowed the fact, he was resolved to keep his secret, to be only her true and father-like friend, to watch over her life, to guard her so far as he might from sorrow, to find his joy in seeing her happy.
So matters might have gone on indefinitely, but for this scene. General Villiers was a man of peculiarly simple nature, single-eyed and straightforward, but by no means incapable of taking a false step. The very directness of his aims, and the childlike eagerness of his impulses, combined with a certain innate incapacity to look upon both sides of a question, made him the more liable to such a step. Evelyn's distress, her free speech, her instinctive turning to him, broke through his purposes of self-restraint. The love, which had smouldered hitherto, leaped up in a fierce flame, and bore down all barriers. He thought how he might bring her speedy relief; and he did not think how the manner of that bringing might possibly mean a fresh thraldom. At the moment it seemed to him that for her sake he might speak.
"Evelyn, my little girl," he said, and his manly voice faltered, "if I were but younger! If I were but more fitted! I would give my life for you! I would give all I have to smooth your way! And even as things are—if I could be sure that I ought—"
She seemed perplexed, and said, "I don't understand."
"You are too young—only seventeen! Far too young for an old fellow like me. Yes, I am old compared with you, my child! The discrepancy is far too great. It would be wrong! You are such a child. You cannot know your own mind yet. Still I could give love as strong—stronger, I think, than any mere boy. I do give—but how can I ask your acceptance? It would be a cruelty to your future."