"It is you, Grizel," he replied, "who don't see that it is myself I am pitying. It is I who want to be married as much as all that."
Her eyes shone with a soft light, for of course it was what she wanted him to say. These two seemed to have changed places. That people could love each other, and there the end, had been his fond philosophy and her torment. Now, it was she who argued for it and Tommy who shook his head.
"They can be very, very happy."
"No," he said.
"But one of them is."
"Not the other," he insisted; and of course it was again what she wanted him to say.
And he was not always despairing. He tried hard to find a way of bringing David to Elspeth's feet, and once, at least, the apparently reluctant suitor almost succumbed. Tommy had met him near Aaron's house, and invited him to come in and hear Elspeth singing. "I did not know she sang," David said, hesitating.
"She is so shy about it," Tommy replied lightly, "that we can hear her by stealth only. Aaron and I listen at the door. Come and listen at the door."
And David had yielded and listened at the door, and afterwards gone in and remained like one who could not tear himself away. What was more, he and Elspeth had touched upon the subject of love in their conversation, Tommy sitting at the window so engrossed in a letter to Pym that he seemed to hear nothing, though he could repeat everything afterwards to Grizel.
Elspeth had said, in her shrinking way, that if she were a man she could love only a woman who was strong and courageous and helpful—such a woman as Grizel, she had said.