“It’s all as one where you go, you will travel north, and I east, and Lettie south. Lettie has departed. In seven weeks I go.—And you?”
“I must be gone before you,” he said decisively.
“Do you know——” and he smiled timidly in confession, “I feel alarmed at the idea of being left alone on a loose end. I must not be the last to leave——” he added almost appealingly.
“And you will go to Meg?” I asked.
He sat tearing the silken shavings into shreds, and telling me in clumsy fragments all he could of his feelings:
“You see it’s not so much what you call love. I don’t know. You see I built on Lettie,”—he looked up at me shamefacedly, then continued tearing the shavings—“you must found your castles on something, and I founded mine on Lettie. You see, I’m like plenty of folks, I have nothing definite to shape my life to. I put brick upon brick, as they come, and if the whole topples down in the end, it does. But you see, you and Lettie have made me conscious, and now I’m at a dead loss. I have looked to marriage to set me busy on my house of life, something whole and complete, of which it will supply the design. I must marry or be in a lost lane. There are two people I could marry—and Lettie’s gone. I love Meg just as well, as far as love goes. I’m not sure I don’t feel better pleased at the idea of marrying her. You know I should always have been second to Lettie, and the best part of love is being made much of, being first and foremost in the whole world for somebody. And Meg’s easy and lovely. I can have her without trembling, she’s full of soothing and comfort. I can stroke her hair and pet her, and she looks up at me, full of trust and lovingness, and there is no flaw, all restfulness in one another——”
Three weeks later, as I lay in the August sunshine in a deck-chair on the lawn, I heard the sound of wheels along the gravel path. It was George calling for me to accompany him to his marriage. He pulled up the dog-cart near the door and came up the steps to me on the lawn. He was dressed as if for the cattle market, in jacket and breeches and gaiters.
“Well, are you ready?” he said standing smiling down on me. His eyes were dark with excitement, and had that vulnerable look which was so peculiar to the Saxtons in their emotional moments.
“You are in good time,” said I, “it is but half past nine.”
“It wouldn’t do to be late on a day like this,” he said gaily, “see how the sun shines. Come, you don’t look as brisk as a best man should. I thought you would have been on tenterhooks of excitement. Get up, get up! Look here, a bird has given me luck”—he showed me a white smear on his shoulder.