“I don’t know,” said Peggy. “I can’t imagine you selfish. But blind then.”
Then Edith smiled at her.
“Ah, yes, blind,” she said. “I will willingly allow that I may be. But then is not Hugh blind also? And as long as we both remain blind I think we shall be very content.”
She drew Peggy close to her and kissed her.
“I had to tell you, Peggy,” she said, “not only because you are what you always have been to me, but because it was through you and here that I met him. He sang that Schumann song then, singing it into the desert, as it were, letting the wind take it where it chose. And now it is not to the desert he sings it. At least, the desert has blossomed!”
Once again the glory and the eternal youth of love so shone from Edith’s face that Peggy felt that there could be no mistake about this; whatever had lit that beacon there must be meant for her.
“Then it is to be?” she asked.
“Yes, dear Peggy. I wanted to see you first, as I told you. But otherwise—for all you have said I thought of before, the night before in fact—I only wonder now why I did not say ‘Yes’ to him at once. But it was so unexpected and so wonderful, and I wanted to cry too, which I did.”
“Then God bless you and him and your life,” said Peggy with something like a sob in her voice, “and give you both all happiness, my darling.”
Such a talk had to be framed in silence, but it was not long before they spoke not of other things, for that could scarcely be, but of the more practical side of this. Edith had told Hugh that she would tell him her answer as soon as she could, and the telegram to be sent next morning added Peggy’s congratulations, and begged him to come down here for a night. But before long the two parted to go to bed. There was no more to say, and it was frankly useless to attempt to speak of anything else.