“Yes, but gradually, and especially since I was burned, she seems to be getting cemented on to our world,” Mary said wistfully.
“The Englishman is lucky to have so much to offer her, if he cares for her,” said Mark. Win looked over at him across Mary, surprised at the discouraged note in the young voice.
“Why, Mark, what’s up?” he cried.
“Nothing. Nothing down, either; as down as that sounded,” returned Mark. “But I see things as they are, young as I am. Mr. Moulton is fine, as good to me as a man can be, and I’m getting on with the work in a way that satisfies him—and he is exacting for his beloved science!—and fairly to satisfy myself. But how shall I ever get on in the world? I’m slightly lame; I’m doing underground work, though I do love it. If I—if I cared about a girl, ever, what would be the use? I’m not ungrateful; I surely love my work, but a young chap does like to see daylight, or at least a crack where it could come in.”
“There surely is romance in the air, as I told Mary to-night,” thought Win, looking sidewise at the fair, quiet face beside him, which gave no sign whether she had a suspicion of what this might mean or not. “Boys are not worrying much about the future unless they have seen The Girl,” thought Win. “And Mark would be blind not to see that Mary was indeed The Girl of girls!”
“I wouldn’t get impatient, Mark,” he said gently. “There’s a lot of time for a boy under twenty. Since things have worked so well for you thus far, I’d be content to believe they were going to work out right in the end.”
“I’ll try,” said Mark. “I get sort of raging; then I’m ashamed of it.” And Win noticed that Mary, usually so quick to try to comfort every one’s anxieties, did not raise her eyes nor speak.
Mark left his friends at the gate, and Mary and Win went around to the side door, and whistled up the back stairs, fulfilling their contract. Jane and Florimel came down to join them, looking more ruffled in spirit than when they had gone up. Jane was white to the lips, and her short upper lip would quiver and draw; her eyes had hollows under them and they had retreated into her head in a way they had, as if to conceal their colour, as well as expression, when they were sorrowful. Florimel, on the contrary, was dark crimson in cheeks and brilliant eyed; she looked like an embodied young electrical storm.
“I won’t kiss him and call him father, not if he is the king!” Florimel declared, stopping short at the door, and nearly upsetting Mary’s gravity, though she quivered with apprehension of what they were to be told on its further side. The three girls saw, on entering, the same impassive, perfect-mannered gentleman beside the hearth that they had left there.
Mrs. Garden’s eyes were gentle, her smile newly sweet and kind, as Lord Wilfrid arose. Then her three beautiful young daughters entered. She put out her arms to them with a new, motherly gesture which she had learned by the light of the fire that had nearly cost her Mary’s life.