"I would," she said, "if I—liked you so, that you filled my whole heart. Let me go, sir, and no more of this nonsense. I know what I am talking about, and what comes of marrying for love. There was my own mother, she left a rich and luxurious home, wealthy suitors, all the comforts and elegances of life, without which life isn't worth living, and ran away with papa. Then followed long years of poverty, discomfort, illness, and miserable grubbing. She never complained—perhaps she wasn't even very unhappy; her's wasn't the sort of love that flies out of the window when poverty comes in at the door—she just faded away and died. For myself I have been dissatisfied with my lot ever since I can remember—pining for the glory and grandeur of this wicked world. There is but one way in which they can ever be mine—by marriage. If marriage will not bring them, then I will go to my grave Edith Darrell."
"Which I don't think you will," Mr. Stuart responded. "Young ladies like you, who set out on the search-matrimonial with lots of common-sense, worldliness, selfishness, and mercenary motives, generally reach the goal. It's a fair enough exchange—so much youth and good looks for so many thousand dollars. I wish you all success, Miss Darrell, in your laudable undertaking. It is well we should understand each other, at once and forever, or even I some day might be tempted to make a fool of myself. Your excellent counsels, my dearest cousin, will be invaluable to me, should my lagging footsteps falter by the way. Edith! where have you learned to be so hard, so worldly, so—if you will pardon me—so unwomanly?"
"Is it unwomanly?" she repeated dreamily. "Well, perhaps it is. I am honest at least—give me credit for that. My own hard life has taught me, books have taught me, looking at my mother and listening to my step-mother have taught me. I feel old at eighteen—old and tired. I am just one of those girls, I think, who turn out very good or very bad women, as fate deals with them. It's not too late yet to draw back, Charley. Your mother can easily get another young lady to do the French and German business. You can tell her I don't suit, and leave me at home."
"Not too late to draw back," he said, with his indolent smile. "Is there ever such a thing as drawing back at all? What is done is done. I couldn't go without you now, if I tried. O, don't look alarmed, I don't mean anything. You amuse and interest me, that is all. You're something of a study—entirely different from the genus young lady I'm accustomed to. Only—keep your frankness for Cousin Charley, he's harmless; don't display it to the rest of the world. It might spoil your chances. Even senile millionnaires don't care to walk into the trap, unless the springs are hidden in roses. Come, throw down that endless sewing, and let's have a walk on the beach. Who knows when we may see the sun go down, together again, over the classic waters of Sandypoint Bay."
Edith laughed, but she rose to obey.
"And I thought you were not sentimental. One would think it the Bay of Naples. However, as we start to-morrow, I don't mind going down and bidding the old rocks and sands good-by."
She put on her hat, and the two went wandering away together, to watch the sun set over the sea. In the rosy light of the spring sunset, the fishing boats drifted on the shining waters, and the fisherman's chant came borne to their ears.
"It reminds me of that other April evening two years ago, Dithy, when we came down here to say good-by. You cried then at parting—do you remember? But you were only sixteen, poor child, and knew no better. You wouldn't cry now, would you, for any man in the universe?"
"Not for Charley Stuart certainly—he needn't think it."
"He doesn't think it, my pet; he never looks for impossibilities. I wonder if that night in the snow were to come again if you'd risk your life now, as you did then?"