But even when he turned his face toward Nethermuir, he scorned himself for his weakness. It was a kind of madness that was on him, he thought—a madness that would surely come to an end soon.
“Few men escape it, at one time or another of their lives, as I have heard said. The sooner it comes, the sooner it is over. It has gone ill with many a one. But I am a strong man, and it will pass. Yes! It shall pass.”
This was what he said to himself, and he said also that Allison’s indifference, which he could not but see, her utter unconsciousness of him and his comings and goings, his words and his ways, was something for which he might be glad, for all that would help him through with it and hasten his cure.
But he was not so sure after a while—sure, that is, that Allison’s indifference and unconsciousness of him and his feelings made it easier for him to put her out of his thoughts. There were times when with a sort of anger he longed to make her look at him, or speak to him, even though her words might hurt him. He was angry with her, and with himself, and with all the world; and there was truth in old Crombie’s accusation that he carried his head high and neglected his friends.
It was all that he could do sometimes to endure patiently the company of Robert Hume or his brothers. Even Davie, who was not exacting in the matter of response to his talk, missed something in his chief friend, and had serious misgivings about it.
And Davie’s mother had her own thoughts also, and she was not well pleased with John. That “his time was come” she knew by many a token, and she knew also, or guessed, the nature of the struggle that was going on in him. She acknowledged that his prudence was praiseworthy, and that it might not be the best wisdom for him to yield to impulse in a matter so important; but she also told herself scornfully that if his love were “true love,” he would never have waited for prudence or for ambition to put in a word, but would have gladly taken his chance whatever might befall.
“Though indeed he might have cause to repent afterward,” she acknowledged with a sigh.
And since Allison was not thinking at all about him, little ill would be done. The lad would get his discipline and go his way, and might never know what a chance of happiness he had let slip out of his hands.
“For he could make her learn to love if he were to try,” said Mrs Hume to herself. “But he must not try unless— And if he should say or do anything likely to bring watchful eyes or gossiping tongues upon Allison, I shall have something to say to the lad myself.”
Some one else was having her own thoughts about these two. Mistress Jamieson had seen the lad when “his een first lichted on the lass,” and she had guessed what had happened to him. Now she waited and watched with interest expecting more. She had not counted on the blindness or long-continued indifference of Allison.