His head bowed over the letter. “My God—no! But it’s a real thing. She must tell him. I nearly told him myself—up there—when he made me look at the ground, but you happened to prevent me.”
How Providence had watched over them!
“She won’t tell him. I know that much.”
“Then, Agnes, darling”—he drew her to the table “we must talk together a little. If she won’t, then we ought to.”
“WE tell him?” cried the girl, white with horror. “Tell him now, when everything has been comfortably arranged?”
“You see, darling”—he took hold of her hand—“what one must do is to think the thing out and settle what’s right, I’m still all trembling and stupid. I see it mixed up with other things. I want you to help me. It seems to me that here and there in life we meet with a person or incident that is symbolical. It’s nothing in itself, yet for the moment it stands for some eternal principle. We accept it, at whatever costs, and we have accepted life. But if we are frightened and reject it, the moment, so to speak, passes; the symbol is never offered again. Is this nonsense? Once before a symbol was offered to me—I shall not tell you how; but I did accept it, and cherished it through much anxiety and repulsion, and in the end I am rewarded. There will be no reward this time. I think, from such a man—the son of such a man. But I want to do what is right.”
“Because doing right is its own reward,” said Agnes anxiously.
“I do not think that. I have seen few examples of it. Doing right is simply doing right.”
“I think that all you say is wonderfully clever; but since you ask me, it IS nonsense, dear Rickie, absolutely.”
“Thank you,” he said humbly, and began to stroke her hand. “But all my disgust; my indignation with my father, my love for—” He broke off; he could not bear to mention the name of his mother. “I was trying to say, I oughtn’t to follow these impulses too much. There are others things. Truth. Our duty to acknowledge each man accurately, however vile he is. And apart from ideals” (here she had won the battle), “and leaving ideals aside, I couldn’t meet him and keep silent. It isn’t in me. I should blurt it out.”