She looked down upon him, understanding, but not knowing how to meet him, how to express herself. His words and manner were a confession of personal grief,—almost an appeal to her,—the first he had ever made. Yet how to touch the subject of his marriage! She shrank from it painfully. What ominous, disagreeable things she had heard lately of the young Lady Tressady from people she trusted! Why, oh! why had he ruined his own life in such a way!
And with the yearning towards all suffering which was natural to her, there mingled so much else—inevitable softness and gratitude for that homage towards herself, which had begun to touch and challenge all the loving, responsive impulse which was at the root of her character—an eager wish to put out a hand and guide him—all tending to shape in her this new longing to rouse him to some critical and courageous action, action which should give him at least the joy that men get from the strenuous use of natural powers, from the realisation of themselves. And through it all the most divinely selfish blindness to the real truth of the situation! Yet she tried not to think of Maxwell—she wished to think only of and for her friend.
After his last words they stood side by side in silence for a few moments. But the expression of her eyes, of her attitude, was all sympathy. He must needs feel that she cared, she understood, that his life, his pain, his story mattered to her. At last she said, turning her face away from him, and from the few people who had not yet left the garden to go and listen to some music that was going on in the drawing-room:
"Sometimes, the best way to forget one's own troubles—don't you think?—is to put something else first for a time—perhaps in your case, the public life and service. Mightn't it be? Suppose you thought it all really out, what you have been saying to me—gave yourself up to it—and then determined. Perhaps afterwards—"
She paused—overcome with doubt, even shyness—and very pale too, as she turned to him again. But so beautiful! The very perplexity which spoke in the gently quivering face as it met his, made her lovelier in his eyes. It seemed to strike down some of the barrier between them, to present her to him as weaker, more approachable.
But after waiting a moment, he gave a little harsh laugh.
"Afterwards, when one has somehow settled other people's affairs, one might see straighter in one's own? Is that what you mean?"
"I meant," she said, speaking with difficulty, "what I have often found—myself—that it helps one sometimes, to throw oneself altogether into something outside one's own life, in a large disinterested way. Afterwards, one comes back to one's own puzzles—with a fresh strength and hope."
"Hope!" he said despondently, with a quick lifting of the shoulders.
Then, in another tone—
"So that's your advice to me—to take this thing seriously—to take myself seriously—to think it out?"