Mildred must not be silly; Mildred must be a sensible girl; Mildred must summon patience to her aid, consider other people’s feelings as well as her own, allow time to work on her behalf.
Mildred put down her tea-cup with a nervous jerk; she was bitterly disappointed; and yet what different sort of advice could she have expected from the owner of this room, with its caged bird, its cat of dubious gender, its chintzes, water colour drawings, and embroidered footstool—this room used only by elderly women, in which the sound of a real man’s voice had never once been heard? Clergymen came here no doubt for subscriptions; and faded old bachelors, like old maids themselves, to gossip amiably—of books, china, pictures, or anything else without any real life in it. Completely enervated, Mildred felt again that sense of fantastic incongruity between the subject of her late discourse and its auditor. As well might she have gone to the nuns at Roehampton and told her tale there.
Moreover, while talking, Miss Verinder performed certain little actions which, as Mildred guessed, had become purely automatic from long habit—such as pouring out milk and tea in a saucer and placing it on the floor for the cat, going across the room and inserting morsels of the sugary cake between the cage bars for the parrot. Nevertheless, although thus to be interpreted, they added to the girl’s distress.
Miss Verinder went on talking with earnestness and affection. She would help, to the best of her ability, she would take the first chance of a chat with Mrs. Parker. But really and truly it is all nonsense to speak of kicking over the traces, outraging propriety or convention, and that sort of thing. Mildred must wait. At any rate, one must not give way to one’s passions.
Then Mildred blurted it out; clothed her thought in very plain words. “But, dear Miss Verinder, perhaps you don’t know what the passions are.”
“Why should you assume that?” said Miss Verinder gently.
Mildred apologised for a stupid phrase or explained it away. Unconsciously she had ceased to address Miss Verinder by her Christian name, and she pleaded with great strength for her own point of view. It was the fiery cry of youth. Whatever else you can do when you are young—so she said in effect—there is one thing you cannot do, and that is, wait.
“Miss Verinder, I feel that I want us to be bound together—now—and forever. Suppose we put it off, who can say what would happen? Accidents—anything—He might grow tired of waiting—or—or change his mind.”
“Oh, no, dear. If there is any chance of that, it is all the more reason for not being in a hurry.”