She took it very bravely and very quietly, as it seemed to him. He felt a certain admiration. There was good blood in the girl. Her father must have been worth knowing. His thoughts would have taken a different direction––would have been nothing so complacent if he had known just what she was thinking. His speech, terrifying at first, had actually renewed a hope that had fallen very low. She did not believe a word of what he had said, that is, of his having nothing more to give. Whenever did woman believe any such thing as that, no matter how solemnly, on what stoutest oaths, with what tragic air a man has told it to her? Love is not love that doubts its own compelling power. And Marion, gazing fondly at Philip now, felt somewhat as a mother feels who smilingly indulges some childhood tragedy of her boy, knowing that it will pass as the cloud upon an April sky. If this was the worst he had to say to her––
But it was not the worst. Philip felt an intense relief to see her accept the situation with such unexpected calm. He admired her consciously now,––for her intelligence. He began to think that he might almost take her hand, and thank her, as he would thank a man for doing him a service, however mistakenly. But something held him back from that folly. He wondered a little at her silence, and it was by way of breaking it 171 before it should become embarrassing that he searched for something safe and commonplace to say to her.
“It was my own fault, you know, that I was injured.”
“Why your own fault?”
“I was in a bad humor. I lost my self-control. And I got what I deserved.”
He thought she would ask him why he had been in a bad humor, and he purposed to say that he was raging in discontent, longing for the white road again. It would be safe enough now, no doubt, to tell her in this fashion that if ever she should come to the Park again she would not find him there. But his words had suggested something entirely different to her mind.
“What are you going to do with him?” she asked, in sudden vague anxiety.
“Do with him?”
“Yes––Sunnysides? I wish you’d please sell him.”
“Sell him? Sell Sunnysides?” His voice betrayed his astonishment.