"I do thank you from my heart. I little thought you would wish to make me so happy. I shrank from showing you the letter lest you should think I dared to hope…. It is not only Velna; it is such strange joy and comfort to be held fast by one who cares—to feel safe in hands as kind as they are strong. You said you could love none save Eveena; but, Clasfempta, your way of not loving is something better, gentler, more considerate than any love I ever hoped or heard of."
I could read only profound sincerity and passionate gratitude in the clear bright eyes, softened by half-suppressed tears, that looked up from where she knelt beside me. But the exaggeration was painfully suggestive, confirming the ugly view Enva had given yesterday of the life that seemed natural and reasonable to her race, and made ordinary human kindness appear something strange and romantic by contrast.
"Surely, Eunané, every man wishes those around him happy, if it do not cost too much to make them so?"
"No, indeed! Oftener the master finds pleasure in punishing and humiliating, the favourite in witnessing her companions' tears and terror. They like to see the household grateful for an hour's amusement, crouching to caprice, incredulously thankful for barest justice. One book much read in our schools says that 'cruelty is a stronger, earlier, and more tenacious human instinct than sympathy;' and another that 'half the pleasure of power lies in giving pain, and half the remainder in being praised for sparing it.' … But that was not all: Eveena was as eager to be kind as you were."
"Much more so, Eunané."
"Perhaps. What seemed natural to her was strange to you. But it was your thought to put Velna on equal terms with us; taking her out of mere kindness, to give her the dowry of a Prince's favourite. That surprised Eveena, and it puzzled me. But I think I half understand you now, and if I do…. When Eveena told us how you saved her and defied the Regent, and Eivé asked you about it, you said so quietly, 'There are some things a man cannot do.' Is buying a girl cheap, because she is not a beauty, one of those things?"
"To take any advantage of her misfortune—to make her feel it in my conduct—to give her a place in my household on other terms than her equals—to show her less consideration or courtesy than one would give to a girl as beautiful as yourself—yes, Eunané! To my eyes, your friend is pleasant and pretty; but if not, would you have liked to feel that she was of less account here than yourself, because she has not such splendid beauty as yours?"
Eunané was too frank to conceal her gratification in this first acknowledgment of her charms, as she had shown her mortification while it was withheld—not, certainly, because undeserved. Her eyes brightened and her colour deepened in manifest pleasure. But she was equally frank in her answer to the implied compliment to her generosity, of whose justice she was not so well assured.
"I am afraid I should half have liked it, a year ago. Now, after I have lived so long with you and Eveena, I should be shamed by it! But, Clasfempta, the things 'a man cannot do' are the things men do every day;—and women every hour!"