Ivy shook her head. “It’s because you don’t really like me; you mean to be kind, just kind and nothing more. I hate your kindness!”
All the grief and love and passion that was pent up in her heart seemed to break loose into this wild, little speech.
Ralph began to pace the room again, he understood her only too well, and he was sorely perplexed as to what he should do. At last he came to the somewhat original determination to treat her as he would have liked in her place to be treated. He sat down by her, and said quietly:
“We are all of us unhinged this morning, but I want you, Ivy, to try and see things as they really are. I’m going to tell you what not another soul in the world knows, for it will help you to see how we stand. I have a friend in England who is as yet only my friend, but I’m presumptuous enough to dream—to hope that some day she will be my wife.”
“Then very naturally you can’t care much what happens to other girls,” said Ivy, perversely.
“I care a hundred times more,” said Ralph. “It is just through her that I have learnt to reverence all women. Were she in your plight up here in Forres should I not think any man a brute who risked her good name, who didn’t do his utmost to shield her and help her unselfishly?”
Ivy did not reply; her wistful blue eyes were fixed on his now with the questioning look of a child who is trying to grasp some quite new idea. She had seen all through her precocious childhood and girlhood a great deal that called itself love, but was only selfishness and animal passion, and now through her sorrow and disappointment she was beginning faintly to perceive another kind of love altogether, a love that was divine and ennobling. It was just a far-away glimpse such as she had gained of the landscape one day, when, in spite of cloudy weather, they had climbed Moncrieffe Hill, and as the mist every now and then cleared off for a few minutes, they had seen the sun shining on lovely scenery far far in the distance. She had the same sense now that the glimpse of love she had gained was real and true, and that the mist was a mere passing discomfort.
“I am sorry I was angry,” she exclaimed. “I don’t mean what I said, then. I like you to be my friend and to help me—at least if it’s right for me to let you.”
“Of course it’s right,” said Ralph. “Didn’t your grandfather trust me to take you down to Scotland and place you with Mrs. Skoot? I owe it to him since she has deserted you, to see you safely back in London, and I will write a line at once to Mrs. Dan Doolan explaining things.”
“Thank you,” she said, in a sad, meek little voice. And as he began to write, her little, sensible, managing ways came back to her and she began to cut thick slices of bread and butter and wrap them up for the journey. She then consoled the landlady with her travelling trunk, packed her few possessions into the smallest compass possible, and by the time Myra Kay called for her, was waiting ready dressed, looking, indeed, very pale, but with an air of determination about her firm little mouth which Ralph could not help admiring.