Marjory's lips parted in a smile. "I suppose not. I did not know I should feel the heat so much. Besides, it is only down the village. I will take the basket at once, and rest afterwards."
"No—I will see to the flowers."
"But your letters?"
"They shall wait. Duties never clash, my dear."
Mr. Fitzalan's left hand went detainingly to the basket-handle, while his right, which had dropped the pen, drew her down upon a chair close to his side. She laid her head against his shoulder, and there was the sound of a long breath, half of pain, half of content. As a rule these two were more reserved in their daily intercourse one with the other than might have been expected. They loved deeply, and they "pulled together well," as the saying is: yet their "hermit-spirits" lived apart in locked chambers, seldom touching. Once in a way this seclusion was broken through, but not often. Perhaps they were too busy in outward life; perhaps too much alike in character.
"Poor little woman!" Mr. Fitzalan said musingly. "Always knocking against hard corners in this rocky world of ours! But there's balm for bruises, Marjie."
"Am I bruised?" and she tried to laugh; then whispered, "I hate to be stupid."
"It is not stupidity. You are overstrained, doing everybody's work for everybody. The fall of a wax image from its pedestal seems a woeful event at such times. Yes—wax! How much do you know of Harvey? Eight years ago he was a good-natured young fellow, amusing himself with you two children. My dear, no doubt about that. You were clever, and Hermione was pretty, and he had nothing to do. He was kind, of course, but if you expect perfection in everybody who is kind to you, I am afraid you are in for disappointments. Human nature at its best is a very mixed concern. You don't look for perfection, eh? No, not literally, perhaps; but you have a high ideal, and you fancy now and then that you have found the ideal embodied. Whereupon the embodiment falls short of the ideal, and you—"
Marjory said only, "Yes," to this. Mr. Fitzalan changed his tone.
"You will never find it, except in One—in Christ. Human craving can only be satisfied in Him. He alone comes up to the loftiest ideal, and He alone can never disappoint our expectations. The best and holiest of men and women do disappoint us more or less."