“Do I frighten you?” said Belle. “Am I outré?”
She almost glared into Leslie’s face.
“Miss Gilroy, whatever happens, I cannot but be myself.” As she spoke she started forward, and laid one of her very thin large angular hands on Leslie’s arm. The hand clutched the slight round arm so firmly that it was with difficulty poor Leslie could suppress a scream.
“Yes,” continued Belle; “I can stand things as they are no longer. Even my own familiar friends turn from me. Do you think I want to deceive you? Do you think for one single instant I want you to suppose that I am other than what I am—a girl, nay, a woman, whose aim in life is to dig deep into the vast mines of the mighty past, those great mines which have been left to us by the dead and gone. I want to acquire—why, do you suppose? In order to help my fellow-creatures, in order to impress upon them the greatness of eternity and the frivolity of time, in order, when I really pass away, that I may leave footprints behind me on the sands of time.”
“Hear, hear!” said Marjorie.
“Let us quote from Longfellow now; it would be most appropriate,” said Lettie from the stern.
“Marjorie,” said Belle, “I am sorry that you have interrupted me with that very silly remark. As to the young person in the stern, I refuse to acknowledge her existence; but you, Marjorie, are laughing at me.”
“Indeed, I am not,” said Marjorie.
“Nor do I laugh at you,” said Leslie. “I am sure you mean very well, indeed, and in some ways I agree with you. I also want to lead the earnest life.”
“Do you? Is that a fact? Tell me how you furnish your room?”