“Of course that is possible,” Arthur answered doubtfully, “but I see no such prospect. I see only danger in my present situation, danger of falling into the lassitude and inertia of contentment. I saw that danger from the first, especially when I first knew you. I felt myself in very serious danger of falling in love with you like the rest. In that case I might possibly have won you, as none of the rest had done. Then I should joyfully, and almost without a thought of other things, have settled into the contented life of a well to do planter, leaving all my duties undone.”
Edmonia flushed crimson as he so calmly said all this, but he, looking off into the nothingness of space, failed to see it, and a few seconds later she had recovered her self-control. Presently he added, still unheeding the possible effect of his words:
“You saved me from that danger. You put me under bonds not to fall in love with you, and you have helped me to keep the pact. That danger is past, but I begin to fear another, and my only safety would be to go back to my work if that were possible.”
For a long time Edmonia did not speak. Perhaps she did not trust herself to do so. Finally, in a low, soft voice, she asked:
“Would you mind telling me what it is you fear? We are sworn friends and comrades, you know.”
“It is Dorothy,” he answered. “From the first I have been fond of the child, but now, to my consternation, I find myself thinking of her no longer as a child. The woman in her is dawning rapidly, especially since she has been called upon to do a woman’s part in this crisis. She still retains her childlike simplicity of mind, her extraordinary candor, her trusting truthfulness. She will always retain those qualities. They lie at the roots of her character. But she has become a woman, nevertheless, a woman at sixteen. You must have observed that.”
“I have,” the young woman answered in a voice that she seemed to be managing with difficulty. “And with her womanhood her beauty has come also. You must have seen how beautiful she has become.”
“Oh, yes,” he answered; “no one possessed of a pair of eyes could fail to observe that. Now that we are talking so frankly and in the sympathy of close friendship, let me tell you all that I fear. I foresee that if I remain here, as apparently I must, I shall presently learn to love Dorothy madly. If that were all I might brave it. But in an intercourse so close and continual as ours must be, there is danger that her devoted, childlike affection for me, may presently ripen into something more serious. In that case I could not stifle her love as I might my own. I could not sacrifice her to my work as I am ready to sacrifice myself. I almost wish you had let me fall in love with you as the others did.”
Again Edmonia paused long before answering. When she spoke at last, it was to say:
“It is too late now, Arthur.”