“This is very sad,” said Mrs. Fellowes at last, “it is so sad, dear, that one can hardly speak of it. No woman has the right to try experiments, to play pranks with hearts and souls. You deserve—ah, what a brute I am! I have no right to scold you, my poor Gwen, you’ll have to pay dearly enough for your play. You will know some day what you have done,” said she, laying her soft warm cheek down on the girl’s head in the caressing way she had when Gwen was a child, “then you will suffer, ah, child, how you will suffer! But it is Humphrey one feels for now. Gwen, you must not let him feel you are so far from loving him.”
“He knows. You don’t suppose I lied to him?”
“He knows in a way, but he doesn’t realize the knowledge, nor does he quite know the material he has to work on, or how the twist came into the warp and woof of it. Gwen, don’t let your horrid truthfulness make you cruel, be patient, dearest, be patient, this love won’t come like a shock, it will steal in on you, and I am perfectly convinced your first impulse will be to kick it out.”
Gwen gave a little laugh.
Mrs. Fellowes dropped the brooch with which she was going to fasten Gwen’s collar, went a few steps away, and looked at her.
“Humphrey knows precious little about you,” she cried, with some natural irritation, “he is dazed, small blame to him! so am I, so is John, we are all dazed.”
Her eyes filled suddenly with tears.
“We all pour out our love on you, and—and for what? Just for a cold ghost of a thing, for mere hope—hope, what good is that to any man? Now, look here, Gwen, don’t let Humphrey know this, naked truth though it be. There is no lie in the matter, you can love, darling, you can, ’tis only the learning that is the trouble for you, but I have a horrid hateful presentiment, in spite of all I can say, that your most objectionable direct methods will run you into deplorable difficulties.”
“Truth is tangible, even if it is brutal,” said Gwen, “but love—love—love, this intangible vague horror, why should I be persecuted with it, why should I realize now that, vague as the thing is, it is sacred, and a sort of crime of a very low order to be incapable of it? I got as far as that in church to-day with all those glaring faces on me, and Mr. Fellowes’ eyes—he has no right to look through people like that!”
She turned away to hide the crimson in her cheeks.