For one moment Peggy felt utterly helpless, but then there came to her aid that passion for the happiness of others that was so urgent within her, and which had prompted that sincere little heart’s-cry in the punt this morning—and it was that and that alone that prompted her to speak.
“Yet you came here to tell me before you answered him,” she said. “Why?”
Edith looked grave for a moment—searching, indeed, for the reason that had prompted what had been an instinct to her.
“I think one always wants to consult a person one loves and trusts before taking any step at all,” she said quite simply.
“Ah, you dear,” said Peggy, impulsively kissing her, “and all I say, all I think, you know, is said and thought by such a one.”
That filmy mist had thickened, for whatever love beckons it cannot quench that love which has sprung from common blood, and has been deepened and strengthened through years of affection and esteem. If the one is irresistible, the other clings ivy-hard, and though both sisters knew that it was impossible that that cord of love which had begun at birth between them could be severed, yet there was no doubt that it would be stretched and strained.
“You came to consult me,” she said, “and so it would be futile if I did not give you all that is most sincere in me. Oh, Edith, it would be madness in you to do this! While one is in this life, and bounded by the limitation of years, one has to use common sense, and not go trespassing, and—and masquerading. You are a beautiful woman, dear, and Heaven knows, and I do, how lovable. You are clever, you have knowledge of life——”
Edith just moved in her chair.
“By the way, I told him I wrote ‘Gambits,’” she said; “it was after that that he proposed to me!”