An awkward pause followed, which Robert broke, falteringly: “Margie, it is not a time to stand on formality, and I know from my former experience that a delay in speaking is sometimes disastrous. So I am going to ask you a question in the presence of my mother. Will you be my wife?”
Meg’s face was white, and her voice quietly cold as she replied, “I am not unmindful of the very great honor you do me, Robert, but I must decline it.” And turning to Mrs. Malloy, “Is there a train I can take to-night?”
“No, dear, not till morning. Let me take you to your room, and you can rest, for I know you are tired.”
“Thank you,” Meg said sweetly, and giving Robert a little nod she followed his mother from the room.
After opening her door for her and seeing that everything was as she had ordered, even to the flowers, and the cheerful grate fire, Mrs. Malloy turned to leave the room. At the threshold she paused, and Meg was really concerned to see the look of age which had overtaken her features. “You would better rest a while,” she said, “and I will have you called in time for dinner.”
When she was alone Meg threw herself down in a chair before the fire and sat staring into the glowing embers. She was deeply wounded and offended. “Do they think I have no self-respect?” she said to herself. “Mrs. Malloy, knowing me to be dying of love for Robert, and being accustomed to gratifying his slightest whim, hands me to him on a platter, with her compliments. And he, so polite, having been taught to say ‘Please,’ and ‘Thank you,’ accepts me graciously. ‘Thank you, Mother dear; you have the knack of always getting me just what I want. It’s very pretty. I would prefer it to that monastery or any other toy.’”
Just then a glowing log separated, and fell with a hissing sound; gradually the glow faded from it and it became gray and lifeless. “That’s it,” Meg soliloquized; “that log represents life. One moment so full of color and warmth, the next, a handful of ashes.—I hate Robert.—He looks very badly.—I wonder if he was in any danger.—I suppose his mother must have been terribly anxious.—Auntie would say I was sentimentalizing.—I wonder—” The tired head fell back against the cushion of the chair, and she slept dreamlessly and sweetly, till she was summoned to dinner.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
“Her children arise up and call her blessed.”
Meg, refreshed by her nap, was her usual sprightly self at dinner. Mrs. Malloy looked weary and old, and had little to say. Robert, who dined only by courtesy, his repast consisting of a bowl of bouillon, conversed with Meg on the impersonal topics she selected.