Grace felt the color mount even to her forehead.
“I haven’t heard from him lately,” she confessed. “I—that is—I owe him a letter.”
“I wish you would write to him. Poor boy. He is very lonely, away up there in the woods.”
Grace did not answer for a moment. Then she said in a constrained voice, “I will write to him, Mrs. Gray. I know he is lonely.”
There was an awkward pause in the conversation; then came the abrupt question, “Grace, do you love my boy?”
“No, Fairy Godmother,” replied Grace in a low tone. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. That is, not in the way he wishes me to love him.”
“I am sorry, too, Grace. I feel almost as though I were responsible for his sorrow. For to him it is a deep sorrow. If I had not given Harlowe House to Overton College, you might have found that your work lay in being Tom’s wife. He has never reproached me, but I wonder if he ever thinks that.”
“I am sure he doesn’t,” Grace’s clear eyes met sorrowfully the kind blue ones. “Please don’t think that Harlowe House has anything to do with my not marrying Tom. It is only because I do not love him that I am firm in refusing him. My heart is bound up in my work. Really, dear Fairy Godmother, I am almost sure I shall never marry. For your sake and his, I’d rather marry Tom than any other man in the world, if I felt that marriage was best for me. But I don’t. I glory in my work and freedom and I couldn’t give them up. I’ve wanted to say this to you for a long time, but I didn’t know just how to begin. Now that I have said it, I hope it hasn’t wounded you.”
“My dear Grace,” Mrs. Gray’s voice was not quite steady, “I would give much to welcome you as my niece, but not unless you love Tom with the tenderness of a truly great love. If that love ever comes to you, I shall indeed be happy. But my dear boy is worthy of the highest affection. If you cannot give him that affection, then it is far better that you two should spend your lives apart.”