Miss Carlaw nodded. “Yes, I remember very well. And I suppose she’s grown up, and has wrought havoc with your young affections all over again? Well, you’re just the sort of fellow to fall in love very desperately and be tremendously in earnest. I’m sure I wish you luck. Only don’t break your heart if you lose; there isn’t a woman in the world that a man need break his heart over; you’ll find that out some day.”
“Ah! but she’s different from all other women; there couldn’t be anybody like her,” said Comethup.
“Exactly; we take that for granted. Most women are stamped by some man or other at some moment of their lives with that hall-mark which sets them above every one of their sisters; the ugliest and the commonest of them may claim that privilege, in most cases at least, if only for an hour or two. But what about this girl? Does she know anything about you? Does she know you’re rich?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Comethup a little indignantly. “But it wouldn’t make any difference to her if she knew it.”
“Of course not; how should it?” said Miss Carlaw dryly. “Riches never make any difference in this world, do they, my dreamer? There, I won’t laugh at you; go on with your wooing, and prosper in it. Do her parents, or whoever looks after her, know anything about the matter?”
“She has no parents,” said Comethup; “they’re dead, both of them.” And forthwith he proceeded to give his aunt some account of ’Linda and her history, so far as he knew; of how he had first found her, and her friendship for the captain, with many details of her loveliness and her charm which must have wearied the excellent old lady very much. However, she expressed deep interest in the matter, and listened with the utmost attention. Presently she got up from her chair and began to walk up and down the room, with her hand on his arm, in silence. After some minutes she broke the silence and spoke almost as though she were alone.
“Yes, it’s the one thing worth having, the one thing worth holding—I’m not sure that it isn’t the one thing worth dying for. Ah! that sounds foolish, perhaps, from the lips of an old woman to whom God never gave anything to attract a man—except perhaps a sharp tongue, and that sometimes drives ’em away. But you mustn’t think, Comethup, that you’re the only one on this earth that’s ever been in love. I know you think that no one ever had it quite so badly as you’ve got it; that all the others have been quite ordinary affairs compared to yours. But the best and the worst of us, the lowest and the highest, may all chance to have a touch of that fever in their passage from the cradle to the grave. It’s a beautiful fever, and I think the delirium of it takes us precious near heaven.“
She stopped again for some moments and appeared very thoughtful; finally shook her head, laughed a little, sighed, and squeezed his arm more tightly.
”I had it once—that fever; I had it very badly. No one ever knew it, thank Heaven! I speak of it now for the first time, yet I would not willingly forget it. What a long, long time ago it seems! What a mad business it was—and ye gods! what I suffered! I can afford to laugh at it now, boy; but it wasn’t a laughing matter then, I can assure you. It was just that sort of crazy business that a man or a woman drifts into without knowing it, and then wakes up suddenly, with a start, to a new life, as it were. I—poor fool that I was—fell in love with a man’s voice—the sweetest voice and the most honest, I think, I’ve ever heard. He liked to talk to me; was good enough sometimes, when I was lonely and out of sorts, to come and read to me. Lord! the music of it all is in my ears now. A woman grows more lovely—even if she be plain she grows quite passable—but she grows more lovely in her own estimation just in proportion as a man seems to think her lovely, or seems to rate her above other women. I thought that—and had my awakening. He came to me one day and took my hand—God! what brutes men can be without knowing it!—and said he knew that I was his friend, and he wanted me to help him. He was in love with some one else; opposition had been placed in his way, and I, curiously enough, had influence. He wanted me to help him. Well, I did. I saw them married. I made a speech—a damned ridiculous speech—at their wedding, and sent everybody into fits of laughter. And all the time my heart was aching as I never thought anybody’s heart could ache. So you see I know what it is, Comethup.”