“It’s like swearing,” said the girl with a scornful laugh, “but it’s true.”
“Jeanie,” said Kirsteen anxiously, “you will say again that I do not understand. But, my dear, I cannot think but you’re terrifying yourself in vain; when true love has once come in, how can the false move ye? It will be no temptation. Oh, no, no. There can be but one; there cannot be two.”
“Where is your one?” said Jeanie. “I know nothing about your one.” She shook her head with a sudden flush of burning and indignant colour, too painful to be called a blush, as if to shake all recollection away. “I have none to take my part,” she said, “but him that says ‘Come.’ And I know that it’s the ill way, and not the good, he’s leading to. But if you leave me here, and leave me alone, that’s the way I’ll go.”
“Oh, Jeanie, my darling, what can I do? I cannot bide—and I cannot steal you away.”
“I will ask no more,” said Jeanie. “You will maybe be sorry after—but then it will be too late.”
Kirsteen put her arms round her young sister, who turned her shoulder towards her, holding off as far away as was possible, with a reluctance and resistance that were almost sullen. “Jeanie,” she said, “if I send you Lewis Gordon instead?”
Jeanie wrenched herself indignantly out of her sister’s arms. “I will never speak nor look at ye again! A man that never said a word to me. What would Lewis Gordon do here? The shooting’s near over, and the fishing’s bad this year. Men that come to the Highlands for sport had better stay at home.”
“Jeanie! if he never spoke it was for poverty and not for want of love; and you were so young.”
“Oh, yes, I was very young—too young to be shamed and made a fool of by him or any man. And if you send him here, Kirsteen, out of pity to save Jeanie—Oh!” the girl cried dashing her clenched hands in the air, “I will—I will—just go headlong and be lost in the darkness, and never be seen more!”
It was true that Kirsteen did not understand. She could only look wistfully at her little sister, in whose young bosom there were tumults unknown to herself. What could she do but soothe and try to subdue her, endeavouring all the time to represent to herself that it was but the impatience of Jeanie’s nature, the hasty temper of a spoilt child, sharpened by offence and misunderstanding of the man whom she really loved. After a time Jeanie yielded to Kirsteen’s caresses and consolations with a sudden recovery of her self-control which was almost more wonderful and alarming than the previous abandon. “It’s no matter,” she said, and recovered her calm with almost an indignant effort. What did it mean? Both the despair and the recovery were mysteries to the more steadfast spirit which knew no such impulses and was ignorant both of the strength and weakness of a passionate superficial nature eager to live and to enjoy, unable to support the tedium and languor of life.