"Well!" said Grace. "I am sorry to have made such a spectacle of myself. Is there anything to say?"
Hugh plucked a box-leaf and scrutinized it carefully.
"They make these things so even!" he said.
"Machinery never could—Let me tell you a story. Do you mind? Once upon a time there was a man—or—well, call him a man! He was part of one, anyhow, as much as accident allowed. He was not strong, but he could work, and he meant to work, and do things he cared about, and lead as good a life as he knew how. He had been a good deal alone, somehow, though he had dear good people of his own; he was an odd stick, I suppose, as odd as the one he walked with."
He stopped, glanced at his stick, with its handle worn smooth as glass; then he went on.
"He had never seen much of women, except his own family; never thought about them much as individuals, though always in his mind there was a dream—I suppose all men have it—of some one he should meet some day, who would turn the world from gray to gold. One day—he saw a vision; and—after that—he learned, not all at once, but little by little, that life was not full and rounded, as he had thought it, but empty and one-sided and unprofitable, if this vision could not be always before his eyes; if this one woman could not come into his life, to be his star, his light, his joy and happiness. She was poor, like himself. He thought of working for her, of sharing with her the honest, laborious, perhaps helpful life he had planned, the life of a Western forester, living among the woods and mountains, studying the trees he loved, learning the secrets of nature at first hand, teaching his beloved all the little he knew, and learning more, a thousandfold more, from every look of her eyes, every tone of her wonderful voice.
"Well—while he dreamed—something happened. Suddenly, by a wave of a wand, as in the fairy tales, his maiden was transformed. Instead of the orphan girl, working bravely with her brave hands to earn her bread, he saw—a rich woman! saw the woman he loved condemned by the idle whim of an idle pleasure-seeker to sit with folded hands, or play with toys and trinkets. He was filled with rage; he hated the very sound of the word money, because—it seemed to him that this money would rob him of his darling. I—he—"
Hugh broke off suddenly. "I am the greatest fool in the world!" he said. "Grace, do you understand me? Do you know what I am trying to say?"
It was the merest whisper that replied, "I don't—know—"
"Yes, you do." Hugh caught the slender hands, and held them close. "You know, you must know, that I have cared for you ever since that first wonderful moment, when you broke through the leaves like sunshine, and I saw the face I had dreamed of all my life. You must have felt it, all these weeks. Oh, Margaret is right, I suppose. All she says is true enough; if you can help this poor woman by taking her wretched money, I suppose you will have to do it. But—but I lose my princess, before ever I could win her. I can't ask a rich woman to be my wife."