Hester could not help being thrilled by the rhythm, moved by the poetic phrase, and penetrated by the air of poetic thought that pervaded the utterance—which would doubtless indeed have entranced many a smaller woman than herself, yet was not altogether pleased. Never yet had she reached anything like a moment concerning which even in transient mood she could pray, "Let it last forever!" Nor was the present within sight of any reason why she should not wish it to make way for a better behind it. But the show of such feeling in Vavasor, was at least the unveiling of a soul of song in him, of such a nature, such a relation to upper things that he must one day come to feel the highest, and know a bliss beyond all feeble delights of the mere human imagination. She must not be captious and contrary with the poor fellow, she thought—that would be as bad as to throw aside her poor people: he was afflicted with the same poverty that gave all the sting to theirs. To be a true woman she must help all she could help—rich or poor, nor show favor. "Thou shalt not countenance a poor man in his cause."
"I do not quite understand you," she said. "I can scarcely imagine the time should ever come when I should wish it, or even be content that it should last for ever."
"Have you had so little happiness?" he asked sympathetically.
"I do not mean that," she replied. "Indeed I have had a great deal—more than all but a very few, I should imagine. But I do not think much of happiness. Perhaps that is a sign—I daresay it is—that I have not had much of what is not happiness. But no amount of happiness that I have known yet would make me wish the time to stand still. I want to be always growing—and while one is growing Time cannot stand if he would: you drag him on with you! I want, if you would like it better put in that way, to be always becoming more and more capable of happiness. Whether I have it or not, I must be and ought to be capable of it."
"Ah!" returned Vavasor, "you are as usual out of sight beyond me. You must take pity on me and carry me with you, else you will leave me miles behind, and I shall never look on you again; and what eternity would be to me without your face to look at, God only knows. There will be no punishment necessary for me but to know that there is a gulf I cannot pass between us."
"But why should it be so!" answered Hester almost tenderly. "Our fate is in our own hands. It is ours to determine the direction in which we shall go. I don't want to preach to you, dear Mr. Vavasor, but so much surely one friend may say to another! Why should not every one be reasonable enough to seek the one best thing, and then there would be no parting; whereas all the love and friendship in the world would not suffice to keep people together if they were inwardly parted by such difference as you imply."
Vavasor's heart was touched in two ways by this simple speech—first, in the best way in which it was at the moment capable of being touched; for he could not help thinking for a moment what a blessed thing it must be to feel good and have no weight upon you—as this lovely girl plainly did, and live like her in perfect fearlessness of whatever might be going to happen to you. Religion would be better than endurable in the company of such an embodiment of it! He might even qualify for some distinction in it with such a teacher!—Second, in the way of self-satisfaction; for clearly she was not disinclined to be on terms of closer intimacy with him. And as she made the advance why should he not accept, if not the help, yet the offer of the help she had almost made? That would and could bind him to nothing. He understood her well enough to have no slightest suspicion of any coquetry such as a fool like Cornelius would have imagined. He was nevertheless a fool, also, only of another and deeper sort. It needs brains to be a real fool!
From that night he placed himself more than ever in the position of a pupil towards her, hoping in the natural effect of the intimacy. To keep up and deepen the relation, he would go on imagining himself in this and that difficulty, such as he was never really in, or even quite knew that he was not in. He was no conscious hypocrite in the matter—only his intellect alone was concerned where he talked as if his being was. No answer he could have had would have had the smallest effect on the man—Vavasor only determined what he would say next. Hester kept trying to meet him as simply and directly as she could, although to meet these supposed difficulties she was unconsciously compelled to transform them, in order to get a hold of them at all, into something the nearest like them that she understood—still something very different from anything in Vavasor's thoughts. But what she said made no difference to him, so long as she would talk to him. And talk she did, sometimes with an affectionate fervor of whose very possibility he had had no idea. So long as she would talk, he cared not a straw whether she understood what he had said; and with all her misconception, she understood it better than he did himself. Thus her growing desire to wake in him the better life, brought herself into relations with him which had an earthly side, as everything heavenly of necessity has; for this life also is God's, and the hairs of our heads are numbered.