The low, rushing words ceased a moment. Manisty looked at her, took both her hands again.
'But they couldn't tell me'—he murmured—'how to please her—how to make her kind to me—make her listen to me. Lucy, whom shall I go to for that?'
She turned away her face; her hands released themselves. Manisty hardly breathed till she said, with a trembling mouth, and a little sob now and then between the words—
'It is all so strange to me—so strange and so—so doubtful! If there were only someone here from my own people,—someone who could advise me! Is it wise for you—for us both? You know I'm so different from you—and you'll find it out perhaps, more and more. And if you did—and were discontented with me—I can't be sure that I could always fit myself to you. I was brought up so that—that—I can't always be as easy and pleasant as other girls. My mother—she stood by herself often—and I with her. She was a grand nature—but I'm sure you would have thought her extravagant—and perhaps hard. And often I feel as though I didn't know myself,—what there might be in me. I know I'm often very stubborn. Suppose—in a few years—'
Her eyes came back to him; searching and interrogating that bent look of his, in which her whole being seemed held.
What was it Manisty saw in her troubled face that she could no longer conceal? He made no attempt to answer her words; there was another language between them. He gave a cry. He put forth a tender violence; and Lucy yielded. She found herself in his arms; and all was said.
Yet when she withdrew herself, she was in tears. She took his hand and kissed it wildly, hardly knowing what she was doing. But her heart turned to Eleanor; and it was Eleanor's voice in her ears that alone commanded and absolved her.
* * * * *
As they strolled home, Manisty's mood was of the wildest and gayest. He would hear of no despair about his cousin.
'We will take her home—you and I. We will get the very best advice. It isn't—it shan't be as bad as you think!'