Despite his facility as an orator, Lyons left this sentence incomplete in face of the ticklish difficulty of explaining that he had refrained from suggesting such a hope to a widow who had lost her husband only two years before. Yet he hastened to bridge over this ellipsis by saying, "Without such a faith a union between us must fall short of its sweetest and grandest opportunities."
"It would be a mockery; there would be no excuse for its existence," cried Selma impetuously. "I am an idealist, Mr. Lyons," she said clasping her hands. "I believe devotedly in the mission and power of love. But I believe that our conception of love changes as we grow. I welcomed love formerly as an intoxicating, delirious potion, and as such it was very sweet. You have just told me of your own feelings toward me, so it is your right to know that lately I have begun to realize that my association with you has brought peace into my life—peace and religious faith—essentials of happiness of which I have not known the blessings since I was a child. You have dedicated yourself to a lofty work; you have chosen the noble career of a statesman—a statesman zealous to promote principles in which we both believe. And you ask me to share with you the labors and the privileges which will result from this dedication. If I accept your offer, it must be because I know that I love you—love you in a sense I have not loved before—may the dead pardon me! If I accept you it will be because I wish to perpetuate that faith and peace, and because I believe that our joint lives will realize worthy accomplishment." Selma looked into space with her wrapt gaze, apparently engaged in an intense mental struggle.
"And you will accept? You do feel that you can return my love? I cannot tell you how greatly I am stirred and stimulated by what you have said. It makes me feel that I could never be happy without you." Lyons put into this speech all his solemnity and all his emotional beneficence of temperament. He was genuinely moved. His first marriage had been a love match. His wife—a mere girl—had died within a year; so soon that the memory of her was a tender but hazy sentiment rather than a formulated impression of character. By virtue of this memory he had approached marriage again as one seeking a companion for his fireside, and a comely, sensible woman to preside over his establishment and promote his social status, rather than one expecting to be possessed by or to inspire a dominant passion. Yet he, too, regarded himself distinctly as an idealist, and he had lent a greedy ear to Selma's suggestion that mature mutual sympathy and comradeship in establishing convictions and religious aims were the source of a nobler type of love than that associated with early matrimony. It increased his admiration for her, and gave to his courtship, the touch of idealism which—partly owing to his own modesty as a man no longer in the flush of youth—it had lacked. He nervously stroked his beard with his thick hand, and gave himself up to the spell of this vision of blessedness while he eagerly watched Selma's face and waited for her answer. To combine moral purpose and love in a pervasive alliance appealed to him magnetically as a religious man.
Selma, as she faced Lyons, was conscious necessarily of the contrast between him and her late husband. But she was attuned to regard his coarser physical fibre as masculine vigor and a protest against aristocratic delicacy, and to derive comfort and exaltation from it.
"Mr. Lyons," she said, "I will tell you frankly that the circumstances of married life have hitherto hampered the expression of that which is in me, and confined the scope of my individuality within narrow and uncongenial limits. I am not complaining; I have no intention to rake up the past; but it is proper you should know that I believe myself capable of larger undertakings than have yet been afforded me, and worthy of ampler recognition than I have yet received. If I accept you as a husband, it will be because I feel confident that you will give my life the opportunity to expand, and that you sympathize with my desire to express myself adequately and to labor hand in hand, side by side, with you in the important work of the world."
"That is what I would have you do, Selma. Because you are worthy of it, and because it is your right."
"On that understanding it seems that we might be very happy."
"I am certain of it. You fill my soul with gladness," he cried, and seizing her hand he pressed it to his lips and covered it with kisses, but she withdrew it, saying, "Not yet—not yet. This step represents so much to me. It means that if I am mistaken in you, my whole life will be ruined, for the next years should be my best. We must not be too hasty. There are many things to be thought of. I must consider Mr. Parsons. I cannot leave him immediately, if at all, for he is very dependent on me."
"I had thought of that. While Mr. Parsons lives, I realize that your first duty must be to him."
The reverential gravity of his tone was in excess of the needs of the occasion, and Selma understood that he intended to imply that Mr. Parsons would not long need her care. The same thought was in her own mind, and it had occurred to her in the course of her previous cogitations in regard to Lyons, that in the event of his death it would suit her admirably to continue to occupy the house as its real mistress. She looked grave for a moment in her turn, then with a sudden access of coyness she murmured, "I do not believe that I am mistaken in you."