“They seem to me petty, the greater part of them, and lacking in a fine sense of honor; lacking courage, too, which is shocking in a man.”
“Oh! one swallow does not make a summer,” said Mother Chevreuse, thinking that she understood the meaning of this discouragement. “You must not believe that all men fail because some unworthy ones do.”
“It is not that at all,” was the quick reply. “You think I mean Lawrence. I do not. He makes no difference with me. I mean the men from whom one would expect something better; the very men who seem to lament that women are not truer and nobler, and who utter such fine sentiments that you would suppose none but a most exalted and angelic being could please them or win their approval. I have heard such men talk, when I have thought with delight that I would try in every way to improve, so as to win their admiration, and be worthy of their friendship; and all at once, I have found that they could be pleased and captivated by what is lowest and meanest. It is disappointing,” she said, with a sigh. “It is natural that women should wish to respect men; and I would be willing to have them look down on me, if they would be such as I could look up to.”
“Has any one been displeasing you?” Mother Chevreuse asked, looking keenly into the fair and sorrowful face before her. She suspected that this generalizing sprang from some special cause. But the glance that met hers showed there was at least no conscious concealment.
“These thoughts have been coming to me at intervals for a good while,” Miss Pembroke answered calmly. “But, of course, particular incidents awaken them newly. I was displeased this morning. I met a lady and gentleman taking a walk into the country, and I did not like to see them together.”
“But why should you care, my dear?” asked Mother Chevreuse, with a look of alarm. She understood perfectly well that the two were Mr. Schöninger and Miss Carthusen.
The young woman answered with an expression of surprise that entirely reassured her friend: “Why should I not care for this case as well as another? He is a new-comer, and all my first impressions of him were favorable. I had thought he might prove a fine character; and so it is one more disappointment. But I am making too much of the matter,” she said, with a smile and gesture that seemed to toss the subject aside. “I really cannot tell why I should have thought so much about it.”
She bent and gaily kissed her friend’s hands; but Mother Chevreuse drew her close in an embrace that seemed by its passion to be striving to shield her from harm. She understood quite well what Honora did not yet know: that the nature which the Creator defined from the beginning when he said: “It is not good for man to be alone,” had begun to feel itself lonely.
“I would try not to think of these things, my dear,” she said earnestly. “Trust me, and put such thoughts away. There are good men in the world, and one day you will be convinced of that; but it is never worth while to look about in search of some one to honor. Think of God, and pray to him with more fervor than ever. Add a new prayer to your devotions, with the intention of keeping this useless subject out of your mind. Remember heaven, work for the poor, and the sinful, and the sick, and, above all, do not fancy that it is going to make you happy though you should be acquainted with the finest men, or win ever so much their esteem. It isn’t worth striving for, even if striving would win it. Nothing on earth is worth working for but bread and heaven.”