“And so was Frances, more or less—that is, she could content herself with the peasants and fishermen, who, of course, are just as good as anybody else, if you make up your mind to it, and understand their ways. But I am not abnormal,” Constance said, her colour rising a little. “I want the society of my own kind. It seems unnatural to you, probably, just as your way of thinking seems unnatural to me.”
“I have seen both ways,” said Waring, in his turn becoming animated; “and so far as my opinion goes, the peasants and fishermen are a thousand times better than what you call Society; and solitude, with one’s own thoughts and pursuits, the best of all.”
There was a momentary pause, and then Constance said, “That may be, papa. What is best in the abstract is not the question. In that way, mere nothing would be the best of all, for there could be no harm in it.”
“Nor any good.”
“That is what I mean on my side—nor any good. It might be better to be alone—then (I suppose) you would never be bored, never feel the need of anything, the mere sound of a voice, some one going by. That may be your way of thinking, but it is not mine. If one has no society, one had better die at once and save trouble. That is what I should like to do.”
A certain feminine confusion in her argument, produced by haste and the stealing in of personal feeling, stopped Constance, who was too clear-headed not to see when she had got involved. Her confusion had the usual effect of touching her temper and causing a little crise of sentiment. The tears came to her eyes. She could be heroic, and veil her personal grievances like a social martyr so long as this was necessary in presence of the world; but in the present case it was not necessary: it was better, in fact, to let nature have its way.
“That will not be necessary, I hope,” said Waring, somewhat coldly. He thought of Frances with a sigh, who never bothered him, who was contented with everything! and carried on her own little thoughts, whatever they might be, her little drawings, her little life, so tranquilly, knowing nothing better. What was he to do, with the responsibility upon his hands of this other creature? whom all the same he could not shake off, nor even—as a gentleman, if not as a father—allow to perceive what an embarrassment she was. “Without going so far,” he said, “we must consult what is best to be done, since you feel it so keenly. My ordinary habits even of villeggiatura would not please you any better than staying at home, I fear. We used to go up to Dolceacqua, Frances and I; or to Eza; or to Porto Fino, on the opposite coast,—at no one of which places was there a soul—as you reckon souls—to be seen.”
“That is a great pity,” said Constance; “for even Frances, though she may have been a Stoic born, must have wanted to see a human creature who spoke English now and then.”
“A Stoic! It never occurred to me that she was a Stoic,” said Waring, with astonishment, and a sudden sense of offence. The idea that his little Frances was not perfectly happy, that she had anything to put up with, anything to forgive, was intolerable to him; and it was a new idea. He reflected that she had consented to go away with an ease which surprised him at the time. Was it possible? This suggestion disturbed him much in his certainty that his was absolutely the right way.
“If all these expedients are unsatisfactory,” he said, sharply, “perhaps you will come to my assistance, and tell me where you would be satisfied to go.”