"She may be right, all the same. I don't know what it is; I wouldn't even name it to anybody but you and mother; but sometimes I feel as if there was a door between me and David, and sometimes he tries to open it, and I'm sure I'm always trying to, but it keeps shut."
"Stuff!" he repeated. "You're such a parcel of nerves, Madge--like poor Mrs. Stanbury. You mustn't let yourself think such things. David's wrapped up heart and soul in you, and if 'tisn't his way to show all he feels, that's only to say he's a Bowden. They are built on that fashion. You must try and look at life more with his eyes. He's a rare man and I envy him his tremendous power of sticking to a thing till he's got through with it. His ideas are big, not little; I can see that, and you ought to see it. You and me are a bit too much alike there, and 'tis our luck not to be rated at our real value in consequence. But we mustn't repay in the same coin. Because David don't quite understand you, and Rhoda don't understand me, we, who are nimbler-witted than them, mustn't be cross. They may not see the truth of us and all the virtues that we've got--and we've both got a rare lot in my opinion--but we do see the truth of them, and so we must be patient with their characters."
It was a new light to the woman, and she perceived the wisdom under his jesting manner.
"If he'd only let me into his secrets!" she said.
"You must be content with mine," he answered. "David lets you into his good fortune and tells you when he's drawn a prize. But the bother and battle he keeps to himself."
"He doesn't," she answered. "I'd forgive that. But he tells Rhoda. Again and again I've known them to break off a subject when I came along--as if I was a baby."
"Try to think 'tis out of their kindness they do it."
"I have tried; but I know different. David don't believe in me--that's the bitterness of my life in a word, Hartley. He don't trust me like he trusts Rhoda."
"Then tell him so. Let him see what he's losing by keeping you out. And I believe, come to think of it, that might be good advice to myself too. With Rhoda I mean. How would it be if I took a bit of counsel with her, Madge--asked her advice, like David does, and treated her like a man instead of a girl? Would that work?"
She considered.