[IN AN OMNIBUS].
The daylight was stealing swiftly yet imperceptibly away. There was no moon, and the occupants of the omnibus were speedily wrapped in gloom. Besides the two we know of, there were others sitting in silence, and in wait for anything to amuse them on the monotonous journey. The vehicle rolled easily along the sandy road, without noise or jar to drown the sound of conversation, and Maida dared not give voice to the many things with which her happy heart was overflowing, before the inquisitive strangers, while Gilbert was far from indisposed to hold his tongue.
To participate with enthusiasm in a réchauffé of feeling, after ten years, and in other scenes and circumstances, demands an effort. If the feeling has been one merely of friendship, such participation is no doubt possible--nay, the long interval lends an atmosphere of pensive charm to the revival, clothes it in roseate hues, and tempts one, in looking down the vista of the years, to see the bond as closer than it really was. But if the friendship was one "touched with emotion," as it mostly is when the parties are a young man and a maid, it is different. The aroma of such a tie is far too subtile and evanescent to survive much keeping. Cherish the memories ever so carefully, as Maida had done, it is only like the storing away of roseleaves. The perfume waxes even stronger, but it is not the same; it is musty and heavy, like spice or drugs--a mummy of the old sweet breath of flowers. Cherish not, as was Gilbert's case, and what is left? The roses have withered, the petals crumbled and blown away, and what remains but the memory of a remembrance?
Had this meeting come ten years later, when the effervescence of the emotions, and the expectation of new sweetness still to be extracted from the dregs of youth, had subsided, then doubtless it would have been pleasant to recur to a tender friendship, and to trick it out in such shreds of sentiment as could be picked from out the lumber of the past. Self-love and self-pity would have delighted to dwell on such a memento of departed youth, when the time for new attachments had passed away. But at thirty a man is still young, except to his juniors. There may yet be loves and friendships to come, more precious than any which have gone before. He looks back upon his past as a mere introduction to his full-fledged present--the raw and callow time of his probation--and early kindnesses seem pale, watery, and insipid.
Gilbert was pleased enough to meet an old friend; especially just then, when he was bound for a pleasure resort, where, as always, those who have friends are tempted to season their social enjoyments with as much exclusiveness as they can afford, and enhance the satisfaction of being within the ring, by keeping as many as possible outside. But this new-found friend claimed so much for their intimacy in the past--so much which was special and particular, and for which he really doubted in himself if there had been warrant. It was an affair of ten years ago. Since then he had led a busy life, overflowing with all the excitements; and he wondered now if there could have been ground for the meaning she appeared to attribute to it. There might have been once, or there nearly might have been--and if the intimacy had lasted longer, perhaps there would have been; but they had now been ten years apart, and who could resurrect a sentiment buried under ten years of oblivion? There had been time for many another tenderness since then. And were not attachments like the herbage of the fields, of which each season produces its own luxuriant crop? Besides, since then a plant more vigorous than any had sprung up, one with deeper-reaching root and wider branches, which had usurped the space and choked all weaker growths. It was a plant whose fruit had been tart as well as sweet; but the complex flavour of it had made his palate critical, and anything more luscious would be mawkish now. Again, had she not been a little abrupt? Was it nice in her to speak so openly--to step so unhesitatingly across the chasm of a ten years' separation, into a past as to which he really had forgotten the particulars? He doubted if that past had been as she would represent it; and even if it had, was it maidenly in her to be the first to speak of it?
Still, he was going amongst strangers. This old friend would be a resource, and would help to break the ice for him; and no doubt, with judgment, he would be able to lead her into seeing things as they were, instead of as she wished them to be. And after all, it was a kindly trait in her to have remembered him so long, poor girl! He hoped it had not interfered with her prospects, much, or made her measure others who were candidates for her favour by too high a standard. Yet it was well, perhaps, to have a high standard, "a noble ideal." That was the way it was expressed by the winter-evening lecturers, and the magazine writers; who, as far as he recollected, always spoke of it as "precious." And he spread himself a little wider in his dark corner of the omnibus, expanded his chest, and felt pleased with himself in the new character of "element in a woman's higher culture." Ah! what a fellow he was, to be sure! If the girls did see his perfections, poor things, it was not his fault. It showed only that they had eyes to see, and he could not wish them blind. It was impossible, of course, that he could be in love with them all; but it was consoling to think that, in being a "noble ideal," he was conferring a moral benefit on those whose attachment he could not return. And through his mind there ran the familiar lines--
"'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
And he sighed contentedly, feeling very kindly towards poor Maida Springer.
Maida sat in the opposite corner of the omnibus, tumultuously happy. She felt garrulous at first in her elation, but the presence of fellow-passengers--staid country folks, who did not speak, but looked inquisitively at her and her friend, as strangers in those parts, and then communicated with each other in interjectional observations about the crops--compelled her to silence; and she had so much to fill her thoughts, that soon she fell into a delightful reverie, and had no wish to converse.
As the daylight grew more dim, she lost sight of her recovered Gilbert; but there he sat before her, all the same--his outline clear against the quiet sky seen through the open window, broad-shouldered, tall and strong, a very rock of manhood; and every thread and tendril of her heart seemed to go out and twine itself around him, as she sat nestled in spirit within his shadow, in a passion of trusting adoration.