“It suggests a woman of a big nature and a warm heart. She doesn’t bother her head as to whether what she is doing is becoming; but her conscience troubles her when she does something which is not quite square and honest, which is perhaps a little mean. She strives to be helpful and companionable and sympathetic, and she detests censoriousness and unkind criticism, either in herself or others.”
“I am afraid,” Mr Musgrave said, with an insight which Peggy had not credited him with possessing, “that you are rebuking me for impertinence.”
Peggy flushed, and raised her face quickly to his.
“No,” she contradicted; “no. I think you meant to be kind.”
There was something very bewitching in Peggy’s upturned face, in the unwonted earnestness of her eyes, and the sweetly serious curve of the parted lips. John Musgrave, as he returned her steady gaze, was more powerfully influenced than he had any idea of. He believed that his interest in Peggy was of the paternal, platonic order. Many people become obsessed with the platonic ideal and travel far along the road of life without discovering that between a man and woman platonic affection is unnatural. There have been instances of platonic love, but these are few; it is a rare and an abnormal emotion.
“I wish,” he said with unusual impressment, “that you would do something to please me.”
“What is that?” inquired Peggy, with an instinctive understanding of what he had it in his mind to ask.
“I want you to promise that you will give up smoking.”
Peggy did not alter her position; neither did John Musgrave. As she sat looking up at him, a tiny pucker knitting her brows, he remained bending over her, intently watching her face without the alteration of a muscle in his own. He anticipated her answer; none the less he felt extraordinarily disappointed when she spoke.
“I can’t do that,” she said. “It isn’t,” she added slowly, “that I do not wish to oblige you, nor that it would be exactly difficult for me to make such a promise. But I can’t recognise any reason why I should. It would be tantamount to an admission that I agree with you that the practice is objectionable. I do not. And I do not wish to encourage your mistaken belief by acquiescing in it. I am sorry. But, you see, I should feel myself something of a humbug if I promised that. I will not, however, offend your sensibilities by smoking in your presence.”