“Ah, what a difference there is between them!” she said, quickly. “One’s actions may so frightfully belie one. What one does is so often a parody of one’s best. One’s worst part acts, while one’s best does nothing, turns its face to the wall, like Hezekiah. Or, or”—she was still kindly trying to explain to this dear little Dresden shepherdess—“one’s actions are often like an unsympathetic repetition of something one has really said, which gives quite a different meaning to it. Do you understand?” she asked, eagerly.
“Yes, dear, quite,” said Lady Susan. “Surely everybody understands that. All the same it is our business if we are kind and good at all not to be harsh or hard in what we do.”
Suddenly Helen’s eyes were opened. In a flash she saw that she had been doing what she deprecated, and hitherto had judged Aunt Susan merely by her actions. With the impatience that was so very characteristic of her, she had observed her ordering dinner, taking the walk, playing picquet, and otherwise having a great deal of rather fragrant leisure with which she did nothing. From this she had drawn the conclusion that there was, so to speak, no one really there, only a punctual little domestic automaton. She had been so taken up with the fact that others did not understand her, did not allow for her individuality, that she had as yet never taken the trouble to consider whether these others also had not their own individuality equally to be respected. Aunt Susan, she would have said offhand, had none, yet she was referring to as a mere commonplace what was still to Helen a blinding discovery. And she went on talking with a freedom and a certainty of being understood that she associated only with the beloved twin.
“Well, it is just that,” she said. “Any one,—you, Uncle David,—any one may say it is merely heartless, merely selfish of me to go my own way, to pay no attention to the wish—ah, it is much stronger than that—of my father. Or you may think that I don’t really know how strong his objection to my marriage is. I do know, I fully know. And knowing that, knowing also that he is my father, that I owe nearly everything to him, that he loves me and I love him, I am going to do, you may say, as I choose, throwing away all the love and the care he has spent on me, repudiating my debts to him. But I don’t. Oh, Aunt Susan, I don’t throw away his love or repudiate my debts. It is not fair to say that. Simply I can’t help it—I must. Something has come which is stronger than everything else. Ah, Aunt Susan, you know what it is.”
Lady Susan’s delicate little china-looking face flushed suddenly.
“Yes, dear, I know,” she said. “At least I know some of it. We women are meant to be wives and mothers. I know half of what a woman longs to know. And the half I know, dear Helen, is so very fine that it is worth making some little sacrifice for it.”
“Sacrifice?” asked the girl.
“Yes. I cannot tell you in great language what I mean, because I am not great in any way, so I will give you my advice in one short word. Wait. Love is so good that it will not spoil by being kept; it will only get more mature, more exquisite. And in the mean time you will have proved yourself a good daughter, too.”
“But why—why?” asked the girl. “Nothing will ever change what father feels about it, nor what I feel. It only means that for six months more, or for a year more, or however long I wait, he and I will go through dreadful days. It is awful at home, Aunt Susan; you have no idea how awful. If it would get any better with waiting, I would do as you suggest.”
The older woman was still smiling in the habitual way which Helen had so often thought so meaningless, so objectless. But now, as she looked, she saw there was a very cheerful patience about the smile which somehow she had not noticed before.