Margaret sat and thought over all this as they crossed the bit of sea between Dover and Calais. Jean and Grace had betaken themselves to a deck cabin, where they lay each on a sofa, scarcely venturing to congratulate each other that the sea was not quite so bad as usual, but prepared for every emergency, and Aubrey had gone to the other end to smoke a cigar. Margaret, in her excitement, had scorned the deck cabin, which both her sisters protested had been secured entirely for her. She was, though she did not as yet know it, one of those happy people who are excited, not prostrated, by the sea. She felt that she would like to walk about the decks with Aubrey; but all that had been permitted to her was to sit in the most sheltered corner, done up in shawls and wraps, so as to lessen all chances of taking cold. And after a while, when the first thrill of excitement calmed down, and she began to get accustomed to her own emotion, and the fact that she had left England, and the extraordinary certainty that these were the shores of France to which she was going, the extreme isolation of the moment drove Margaret back, as is so often the case, upon her most private thoughts. The exhilaration of her being, which was partly convalescence and partly change, she attributed entirely to the fact that, for the moment, she was free—delivered from the danger that had seemed about to overwhelm her.
This consciousness seemed to triumph over everything—her grief which was still so recent, her illness, all the ills her flesh was heir to. And as Margaret’s mind was growing amidst all this agitation, it was now, at this moment, in the middle of the Channel, that the thought suddenly occurred to her: if she had been a sensible girl—if she had not been a very foolish girl, how much better it would have been to pay no heed to Rob Glen’s feelings—to cut at once this bond which was all his making, which had been woven between them without any wish of hers—which she had always rebelled against, except those first nights when she had scarcely been aware what he was saying, or what doing—when she had received his declarations of love almost without hearing them, and allowed his kisses on her cheek with no more perception of their meaning than that he wanted to be “kind” and comfort her. There had been no lover’s interview between them in which Margaret had not—a little—shrank from him. She had held herself away as far as she could from his embracing arm. She had averted her cheek as much as possible; but it had been impossible for her to fling away from him, to deliver herself altogether at the cost of Rob’s feelings. This she had not strength of mind to do. But now she perceived that it would have been better had she done it—had she said plain No, when he declared his love with all the hyperbole of passion.
Margaret knew she did not love him, certainly not in that way; but how she had shrunk from saying it—from letting him feel that she did not care for him as he cared for her! How it would have hurt his feelings! Rather put up with some little excess of affection for herself, she thought, than humiliate him in this way! And now was the first time when she really asked herself, Would it not have been better to say the truth? The question flushed Margaret’s cheek with crimson, then sent back all her blood in a sudden flood upon her heart. She did not venture to contemplate the possibility of having done this—of having actually said to him, “It is a mistake; you are very—very kind, but I am not in love with you.”
The mere idea of it appalled her. How cruel it would have been! How he would have “thought shame!” How his feelings would have been hurt! But still—but still—perhaps it would have been better. She had just become pale and chill all over with the horrible possibility of having given such pain as this, when Aubrey’s voice startled her. He was saying, anxiously,
“I am afraid you are ill. I am afraid you are feeling cold. Won’t you go into the cabin and lie down? We shall be there in half an hour.”
“Oh no!” said Margaret, her paleness disappearing in another sudden blush. The days of her blushing—her changes of countenance, which were like the coming and going of the shadows—had come back. “Oh no! I am not cold; and I am not ill. I like it. But I—was thinking—”
“I wonder if I might offer you a penny for your thoughts? I dare say they are worth a great deal more than that. Would you like to have mine? They are not worth the half of a penny. I was thinking what poor creatures we all are—how unamiable we are on board of a steamboat (the most of us). Look what pictures of misery these people are! It is not rough, but they cannot believe that it may not be rough any moment: when there is a pitch—there—like that!” said Aubrey, himself looking a little queer. “They think, now it is coming! All their strength of mind, all their philosophy, if they have any, cannot resist one heave of that green water. Ugh—here’s another!” he cried, relapsing out of his fine moral tone into abject sensationalism. Margaret laughed as merrily, with her eyes dancing, as if there was no Rob Glen in the world.
“But I don’t care,” she cried. “I like it: when it seems to go from under your feet, and then bounds like a greyhound.”
“Don’t speak of it,” he said, faintly. “And why is it you are so superior to the rest of us? Not because you are so much brighter, and purer, and better—”
“Oh no!” cried Margaret, interrupting him, shaking her head and smiling. “Oh no! for I am not that—”