Bob laughed at him as he went out, and remarked to me that the speech had brought good to one man even if it had worked an injury upon another member of the human family. "And," he added, "we can't expect to help more than half of mankind at once. Dan," he said, after a thoughtful moment, "this has been a great day for me. And she was there, sitting in a buggy. And when she took my arm to-night I knew she was proud of me."
I said that her soul must have been filled with an intoxicating joy, and I lied, for I did not believe that she could entertain an exalted pride. I knew that her vanity was flattered, a hard luster in her eye told me that, but I saw that her victory was cold and selfish. I acknowledged to myself that I had surrounded the young woman with a prejudice (and in a prejudice there is always more or less of intuition) and I tried hard to pull it apart that I might see her clearer; but the prejudice was strong and could not be torn asunder.
Bob was undressing when I left him to go out into the yard, to walk among the trees. I loved my master, and his success I felt was my advancement, but with all that I was wretched. To hold aloft a light that I had found was but to illumine a hopelessness.
As I passed out into the hall, I saw Titine step from the door of Miss May's room. She carried a pitcher in her hand and I knew that she was going to the well. I walked slowly behind her until she reached the hall below and then I called her. She stopped and looked back at me.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Going for water at this time of night?"
"When water is wanted, the time of night makes no difference," she said as I joined her to pass out upon the rear veranda. We walked along together toward the well.
"Titine, I don't know you any better now than I did when you first came."
"And I don't know myself any better, and are you presumed to know me better than I know myself?"