"But, Captain Gordon, although one knows generally, one may still keep wondering—may one not? A woman always wonders; it is one of her privileges, and often wonder is kinder to her than certainty."
"Wonder, dear lady, is a hard thing to gratify, being illimitable, like . . . !
"Like the hills," she caught me up, "when one is alone among them—alone, or going to meet somebody in the dark of the night, or the dimness of early morning."
"It would depend on the somebody," I said boldly, facing her boldness, "and whether it was a man or a woman that was to be met."
"But," she said quite softly, "it must be a man that any other man would be meeting in these parts, because . . ." She stopped abruptly.
"Because what? Tell me!"
"Nothing; only that every man needs to be mothered by a woman, a charge which any good woman, young or old, will instinctively assume, even if she knows that it may be only a cross for her to bear." Her voice was low, almost a whisper, may be a first whisper of the mother of men in her, a revelation to all women, come it when it may; and that thought kept me silent.
We had, by this time, reached the Dower House, and she said
"Good-night," and I answered, as simply, "Good-night."
What I really said to myself was, "Philandering, was I, instead of soldering, on the night the Black Colonel was raided—that's the story she's heard!"
And I was concerned, strangely concerned—like Marget herself.