He looked a little surprised. “My hand is not over-clean, miss, as you see,” opening it with a comical look of regret on his face. “I've just come in from work and haven't washed yet.”
“Oh, it's clean enough,” she said with a slight laugh, putting her small white hand into his dusty palm.
On her way home Mrs. Churton talked a good deal to her companion. She went over her discussion with the carpenter, repeating her own arguments with much amplification; then passing to his, she pointed out their weakness, and explained how that neutral state of mind is unworthy of a rational being, and dangerous as well, since death might come unexpectedly and give no time for repentance.
Fan listened, readily assenting to everything; but in her heart she felt like a bird newly escaped from captivity. That restful state she had been hearing about, in which there was no perpetual distrust of self, vigilance, heart-searching, wrestling in prayer, looked infinitely attractive, and suited her disposition and humble intellect.
CHAPTER XXI
A fortnight later, one hot afternoon, Fan was reading beside the open window of the dining-room. After dinner Mrs. Churton had given her The Pleasures of Hope, in a slim old octavo volume, to read, and for the last hour she had been poring over it. Greatly did she admire it, it was so fine, so grand; but all that thunderous roll of rhetoric—the whiskered Pandoors and the fierce Hussars, and Freedom's shriek when Kosciusko fell, and flights of bickering comets through illimitable space—a kind of celestial fireworks on a stupendous scale—and all the realms of ether wrapped in flames—all this had produced a slight headache, a confusion or giddiness, like that which is experienced by a person looking down over a precipice, or when carried too high in a swing.
Constance came down from her room with her hat on and a book in her hand.
“Are you going for a walk, Constance?” asked her mother, who was also sitting by the open window.