“No. She did not appear. I fancy her sister told her not to interrupt us and so she kept out of the way. It was horribly sad—the whole thing. I could not help thinking that if it had not been for you, the poor creature would never have known how it happened. I should not have been alive to tell the tale.”
“Are you glad that you were not drowned?” Mamie asked in a rather constrained voice.
“For myself? I hardly know. I cannot tell whether I set much value on life or not. Sometimes it seems to be worth living, and sometimes I hardly care.”
“How can you say that, George!” exclaimed the young girl indignantly. “You, so young and so successful.”
“Whether life is worth living or not—who knows? It has been said to depend on climate and the affections.”
“The climate is not bad here—and as for the affections——” Mamie broke off in a nervous laugh.
“No,” George said as though answering an unspoken reproach. “I do not mean that. I know that you are all very fond of me and very good to me. But look at poor John Bond. He always seemed to you to be an uninteresting fellow, and I used to wonder why he found life worth living. I know now. He was loved—loved as I fancy very few men have ever been. If you could have seen that poor woman’s face to-day, you would understand what I mean.”
“I can understand without having seen it,” said Mamie in a smothered voice.
“No,” said George, pursuing his train of thought, tactless and manlike. “You cannot understand—nobody can, who has not seen her. There is something grand, magnificent, queenly in a sorrow like that, and it shows what she felt for the man and what he knew she felt. No wonder that he looked happy! Now I, if I had been drowned the other day—if you had not saved me—of course people would have been very sorry, but there would have been no grief like that.”
He was silent. Then a sharp short sob broke the stillness, and as he turned his head he saw that Mamie had risen and was passing swiftly through the door into the drawing-room. He rose to his feet and then stood still, knowing that it was of no use to follow her.