“Never,” said Constance, with warmth. “People who are a nuisance, often enough; but nobody, never before.”
“I prefer nobody,” said her father.
She raised her eyes to him, as if he were one of the problems to which, for the first time, her attention was seriously called. “Perhaps,” she said; “but then you are not in a natural condition, papa—no more than a hermit in the desert, who has forsworn society altogether.”
“Allowing that I am abnormal, Constance, for the argument’s sake——”
“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.