There were tears in Ruth’s great velvety eyes as she turned to meet her, but she was smiling, too, and even while she held out her arms to Virginia, she thought—“What, jealous of the smooth course of her little childish love! I would not give up one atom of what I feel for all the easy consent and prosperity in the world.” But none the less was she interested and sympathetic as she listened to the outpourings of Virginia’s first excitement, and to the recital of feelings that were like, and yet unlike, her own.
“You see, Ruthie, I could not help caring about him, he was so gentle and kind, and he never seemed angry with the others for misunderstanding him. But then I thought that our lives had been so wide apart that he might be quite different from what he seemed; and one has always heard, too, that foreigners pay compliments, and don’t mean what they say.”
“I should have despised you, Queenie, if you had thrown over the man you love because he was half a foreigner.”
“Oh, no, not for that. But I didn’t—I hadn’t begun to—like him very much then, you see, Ruth. And if he had not been good—”
“And how have you satisfied yourself that he is what you call ‘good’ now?” said Ruth curiously.
“Of course,” replied Virginia, “it is not as if he had been brought up in England. He cannot have the same notions. But then he cannot talk enough of Cherry’s goodness, and seemed so grateful because he was kind to him. Cherry is a very good, kind sort of fellow of course; but don’t you think there is something beautiful in the humility that makes so much of a little kindness, and recognises good qualities so ungrudgingly?”
Ruth laughed a little. Perhaps she thought Alvar’s “bonny black eyes” had something to do with the force of these arguments.
“Since you love each other,” she said, “that is a proof that you are intended for each other. What does it matter ‘what he is like,’ as you say?”
“But ‘what he is like’ made all the difference in the first instance, I suppose?” said Virginia.
“Perhaps,” said Ruth, with a little shrug. “But now you have once chosen, Virginia, nothing ought to make you change, not if he were ever so wicked—not if he were a murderer!”