“Yes,” she acquiesced; “and they are a bit shabby, too. You are going down, Grif. You never used to be shabby. None of us were ever exactly that, though we used to grumble sometimes. We used to grumble, not because other people had things, but because we had n't them.”
“I am getting hardened, I suppose,” bitterly. “And it is hardly to be wondered at.”
“Hardened!” She stopped him that moment, and stood before him, holding his arm and looking up at him. “Hardened!” she repeated. “Grif, if you say that again, I will never forgive you. What is the good of our love for each other if it won't keep our hearts soft? When we get hardened we shall love each other no longer. What have we told each other all these years? Have n't we said that so long as we had one another we could bear anything, and not envy other people? It was n't all talk and sentiment, was it? It was n't on my part, Grif. I meant it then, and I mean it now, though I know there are many good, kind-hearted people in the world who would not understand it, and would say I was talking unpractical rubbish, if they heard me. Hardened! Grif, while you have me, and I have you, and there is nothing on our two consciences? Why, it sounds,"—with another most dubious shake of her small head,—"it sounds as if you would n't care about the house at Putney!”
He was conquered, of course; before she had spoken a dozen words he had been conquered; but this figure of his not caring for the house at Putney broke him utterly. He did not look very hardened when he answered her.
“Dolly,” he said, “you are an angel! I have told you so before, and it may be a proof of the barrenness of my resources to tell you so again, but it is true. God forgive me, my precious! I should like to see the man whose heart could harden while such a woman loved him.”
It was a pretty sight to see her put her hands on his shoulders, and stand on tiptoe to kiss him, in her honest, earnest way, without waiting for him to ask her.
“Ah!” she said, “I knew it wasn't true,” and then, still letting her hands rest on his shoulders, she burst forth in her tender, impulsive way again. “Grif,” she said, “I don't think I am very wise, and I know I am not very thoughtful. I do things often that it would be better to leave undone,—I am fond of making the Philistines admire me, and I sometimes tease you; but, dear old fellow, right deep down at the bottom of my heart,” faltering slightly, “I do—do want to be a good woman; and there is never a night passes—though I never told you so before—that I do not pray to God to let me help you and let you help me to be tender and faithful and true.”
It was the old story,—love was king. Wisdom to the winds! Practicality to the corners of the earth! Prudence, power, and grandeur, hide your diminished heads! Here were two people who cared nothing for you, and who flung you aside without a fear as they stood together under the trees in the raw evening air,—one a penniless little hired entertainer of elderly ladies, the other an equally impecunious bondsman in a dingy office.
They were quite happy,—even happy when time warned them that they must bid each other goodnight. They walked together to the gates of Barbazon Lodge, and parted in a state of bliss.
“Good-night,” said Dolly. “Be good,—as somebody wise once said,—'Be good, and you will be happy.'”