He addressed the remark to Mateel, but she did not seem sure whether it was queer or not; she was never certain of anything, like her father.
“I have an idea that we shall be old men together, and die greatly regretted by one another,” Jo continued. “I should be content with a very few friends like Ned; a man cannot do justice to a great many as true and good as he is. If I were wealthy I should build a high wall around my house, and station a surly porter at the gate instructed to admit only a very few. It is one of the disadvantages of the trade I am learning that I shall be expected to be sociable with every kind of men. I shall never be free to tell those I dislike to forever keep off my premises, as I should like to do, but in order to live I shall be compelled to treat them well for their patronage. It has been my experience that only two men out of every ten have qualities worthy of cultivation, but it would be ruinous to introduce such a doctrine into the mill business.”
I saw that Jo was in an odd humor, for he had forgotten that he should make himself agreeable, and, stopped occasionally to think. Pretending not to notice it, I exchanged the little gossip of the neighborhood with Mateel, until Jo said, with an effort to shake off his gloomy thoughts:—
“Miss Shepherd, I should like to hear you sing.”
Mateel laughed a little at this sudden invitation, but good-naturedly opened the instrument, and, after selecting a piece, sang it. The words were of constancy, and of a lover who went mad on learning that his mistress had wedded his rival.
“It’s a song about love,” Jo said, after Mateel had finished it, picking up the music and looking curiously at the title-page. “Most song-writers take that for a subject. Do you believe the story it tells?”
“I sang it because I believed it,” Mateel said, wincing under Jo’s cold and steady gaze (he was in a very odd humor indeed). “I believe in but one love.”
“There are so many people who believe in two or three, or half a dozen. I suppose you do; all good people are very honorable in matters of this kind. Sometimes very bad people believe in it—I do, for one.”
I have thought of this very often since, for a great deal that was horrible might have been avoided had the conversation been candid on both sides.
“I would be afraid of getting in love’s way,” he said, as though we had been accusing him. “They say it never runs smooth, and I should be very unhappy were it to be interrupted. The writer speaks of the heart’s silent secrets. That seems to be the general heart trouble; it is a repository of secrets, and always uncomfortable ones. The subject makes me miserable; I never thought of it in my life that I did not at once become disagreeable.”