“Also just as absolute between her and her sex,” he rejoined, controlling himself, not to be less cool. “What has happened?”
Georgiana pointed to the hotel whither their steps were bent. “That is where Charlotte sleeps. Her going there was not a freak; she had an object. She wished to cure Emilia of her love for Mr. Wilfrid Pole. Emilia had come down to see him. Charlotte put her in an adjoining room to hear him say—what I presume they do say when the fit is on them! Was it not singular folly?”
It was a folly that Merthyr could not understand in his friend Charlotte. He said so, and then he gave a kindly sad exclamation of Emilia's name.
“You do pity her still!” cried Georgiana, her heart leaping to hear it expressed so simply.
“Why, what other feeling can I have?” said he unsuspiciously.
“No, dear Merthyr,” she replied; and only by her tone he read the guilty little rejoicing in her heart, marvelling at jealousy that could twist so straight a stem as his sister's spirit. This had taught her, who knew nothing of love, that a man loving does not pity in such a case.
“I hope you will find her here:” Georgiana hurried her steps. “Say anything to comfort her. I will have her with me, and try and teach her what self-control means, and how it is to be won. If ever she can act on the stage as she spoke to-night, she will be a great dramatic genius. She was transformed. She uses strange forcible expressions that one does not hear in every-day life. She crushed Charlotte as if she had taken her up in one hand, and without any display at all: no gesture, or spasm. I noticed, as they stood together, that there is such a contrast between animal courage and imaginative fire.”
“Charlotte could meet a great occasion, I should think,” said Merthyr; and, taking his sister by the elbow: “You speak as if you had observed very coolly. Did Emilia leave you so cold? Did she seem to speak from head, not from heart?”
“No; she moved me—poor child! Only, how humiliating to hear her beg for love!—before us.”
Merthyr smiled: “I thought it must be the woman's feeling that would interfere to stop a natural emotion. Is it true—or did I not see that certain eyes were red just now?”