"How could I?" she challenged herself to answer. "I have met him but once. The thing is absurd. Besides, no self-respecting young woman gives her love to any man until he asks for it. No, of course I'm not in love with Mr. Westover. It is nothing but admiration that I feel for him."
Then, as she looked out into the tree-studded house grounds, where all nature seemed to sleep in the soft haze of the moonlight, she added to her thought:
"But it would be easy for such a man to change a woman's admiration into love by a phrase, a word, a look into her eyes. Thank God he has not yet looked into my eyes in that way, and, God being my helper, he never shall. After all,—well, after all there are only a few men in the world that—well, anyhow, it isn't so terrible a thing to be an old maid, and I'll do my duty in this case if the stars start from their courses, as a consequence." Then she laughed under her breath, and jeered in mocking fashion at the absurdity of her thought:
"Of course the stars will do nothing of the kind. That was a bit of heroics, and I'm not a heroine of romance. I'm only a simple, honest, Boston girl. I love Margaret dearly, and I'm resolved to do all I can to bring about a reconciliation between her and Mr. Westover, for I'm satisfied there is need for something of the sort. That's sane and sensible at any rate, and the stars have nothing to do with it."
She had been reading an essay entitled, "The Great Renunciation," and she was full of its spirit, almost a devotee to the impulses it sought to inspire. But as she recalled it she laughed.
"That had to do with the great religions of the world. It didn't refer to the case of a sensible girl who finds herself particularly attracted by a young man at a first meeting and decides that she will not let him fall in love with her because she realizes that the best loved friend of her life is, or has been or ought to be his affianced wife. Millicent, I'm ashamed of you. After all the instruction you've had as to the conduct of life and the behavior of young women, this thing is ridiculous."
Nevertheless there was sadness in that inexperienced heart of hers, as she saw the carriage reënter the house grounds, and herself hastened to bed lest her friend should discover her vigil. But if hers had not been the great renunciation, at least it had been a resolution of loyalty and good faith, and perhaps in the eyes of the angels the two things are very nearly the same. Her exacting New England conscience at any rate was satisfied, so that it let her sleep, just as Margaret's Virginia conscience—different in kind but equally exigent in its demands—permitted slumber, sweet and refreshing, to come to her.
When the morning came these two met, each intently resolved to render to the other the supreme service of sacrifice, and neither dreaming of the other's thought. But in all human affairs circumstance has its part to play, and while it cannot alter purposes it often plays havoc with results. It was so in this case. Things happened, and the happening was more decisive than the moonlight meditations of a pair of maidens could possibly be.
XXVII
THE PHILOSOPHY OF JACK TOWNS
Boyd Westover had the excellent mental habit of attending carefully to more than one thing at a time.