“Ah! yes,” the young man said, with hasty scorn; “they applaud while the thing is new, and then forget all about it. They like novelty. I don’t doubt that all the people would clap their hands if I should take to sweeping the streets, and that for a week the young ladies would tie bouquets to the end of the broomstick. But after the week was over, what then? They would find me a dusty fellow whose acquaintance they would gradually drop. Besides, their applause is not all. I might not enjoy street-sweeping, even though I and my broomstick were crowned with flowers as long as we lasted.”
Miss Pembroke had blushed slightly at this sudden and violent interpretation of her hidden meaning; but she answered quietly: “No: their applause is not all—the applause of the world is never all, but it helps sometimes; and, if they give it to us for one moment when we start on the right path, it is all that we ought to expect. Life is not a theatre with a few actors and a great circle of spectators: we all have our part to play, and cannot stop long to admire others.”
“Especially when that other is only the scene-shifter,” laughed the young man, throwing the hair back from his face.
“I know well that ordinary, inelegant work would come very hard to you, Lawrence,” she said kindly; “and, if it were to be continued to the end of your life, I might think it too hard. But there must be ways, for other men have found them, of beginning at the lower end of the ladder, even very low down, even in the dust, and climbing steadily to a height that would satisfy the climber’s ambition. It needs only a strong will and perseverance; and I firmly believe, Lawrence, that, to a strong will, almost anything is possible.”
“A strong will is a special gift,” he replied stubbornly.
“Yes; and one for which we may ask,” she said; then, seeing that he frowned, added: “And for you I like Crichton, as I said. One is known here, and motives and circumstances are understood. A thousand little helps might be given which in a strange city you would not have. All would be seen and understood here.”
“All would be seen, yes!” he exclaimed, with a shrug and a frown. “That is the trouble. One would rather hide something.”
She would not be repelled. “There is, of course, sometimes a disadvantage in living where everything is known,” she admitted. “But there must be disadvantages everywhere in the world. Look at the bright side of it. If you were in a great city, where all sorts of crimes hide, where men the most abandoned in reality can for a long time maintain a fair reputation before the world, how your difficulties would be increased! You would not then know whom to trust. Here, on the contrary, no wrong can remain long hidden.”
He had not looked at her before, but at these words his eyes flashed into her face a startled glance. Her eyes were looking thoughtfully over the town.
Feeling his gaze, she turned towards him with a quick change of expression and manner. A friendly and coaxing, almost caressing, raillery took the place of her seriousness: “Come! drive away your blues, Lawrence, and take courage. Study out some course for yourself where you can see far ahead, and then start and follow it, though you should find obstacles grow up in the way. Bore through them, or climb over them. There must be a way. There is something in you for honor, something better than complaining. Cheer up!”