Crowdie was a very sensitively organized man in one direction, but singularly hard to move in another. So long as the passions of others appealed to his own, the response was ready and impulsive. But in him mere sympathy was not easily roused. Once freed from self, his faculties were critical, comparative, quick to seek causes and explain their connection with effects. Hester’s words wakened his love, roused his anger, called out his powers of opposition, and touched him to the quick by turns; but her tears said nothing to him at first, except that she was suffering. He was only with her in happiness, never in unhappiness. He stood still for a moment watching her, and asking himself with considerable calmness what was best to be done.
It is not always easy to judge and decide exactly how far a woman could control herself if she thought it wise to do so, and for that reason the genuineness of her tears often seems doubtful. It would be as fair to doubt that a tortured man suffers if he does not groan in his agony, or because he does.
But although at that moment he felt no sympathy with her, though he loved her in his own way, yet his instinct and experience of women told him that with the tears there must come a change of mood. He went slowly to her side, and though she did not look up he knew that she felt his presence, and would not drive him from her again just then. He bent over her, laying his arm upon her shoulders, and looking at the hands that covered her eyes. He did not speak at once, but waited for her to look up. She was sobbing as though her heart would really break. At last, between the sobs, words began to come at last.
“Oh, Walter, Walter!” she wailed, repeating his name.
“Yes—sweetheart—look at me, dear,” he answered, pressing her to him.
Her head rested against him as she sobbed. Then one hand left her eyes and sought his hand, but was instantly withdrawn again. He found it and brought it, resisting but a little, to his lips. In all such actions he had the gentleness, almost boyish, which some women love so well, and which is so kingly in the very strong—for they say that it is sweeter to be caressed by the hand that could kill, than by one that at its worst and strongest could only scratch.
Presently she uncovered her eyes and looked up to his face, and the sobbing almost stopped. Her cheeks were flushed through their whiteness and were wet, and her eyes were dark and shadowy, but the light in them was not hard. The tide of anger had ebbed as the tears flowed, and its wave was far off.
“Tell me you really love me, dear,” she said, still tearfully.
“Ah, sweet! You know I do—I love you—so! Is that right? Doesn’t it ring true now?” He laughed softly, looking into her face. “When did I ever sing false?”
A shade of returning annoyance passed over her features, as her brow contracted at the allusion to his singing, and though she still allowed her head to rest against his side, her face was turned away once more.