“I came here some time ago,” said Easton, “and, not finding you, I tried to find that place where we got the ferns yesterday.”
Mrs. Farrell’s broad hat-brim thrust uncomfortably against the house where she sat on the settle beside the wall, and she took her hat off; a mass of her dark hair tumbled in a rich disorder on her back. She laid her hat in her lap and waited.
“I went there,” pursued Easton, “because I had a stupid hope that the place might inspire me with some faint shadow of reason, of excuse, for—”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Farrell, interpreting his hesitation with candid reproachfulness; “it was not fair, and, considering all things, Mr. Easton, I don’t think it was quite kind.”
“Kind? Kind!” cried Easton, with an inexpressible pang. Then after a moment’s thought he added: “No, it was not kind; it was base, tyrannical, brutal! It was worthy of a savage!”
Mrs. Farrell turned her face slightly away, and if she had been acting wounded innocence she could hardly have known it.
“There was no excuse for such a thing but the one thing in the world which it is least like. That is its excuse to me; it seems an insolent affront to suppose that it can atone for it to you.”
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Farrell, demurely, “that women’s actions are often misconstrued. Indeed, I ought to know it from bitter experience in my own case. I ought to remember that men seem even eager to misinterpret any confidence put in them; but yesterday—I—I couldn’t!”
There was a sort of passionate reproach, a tacit confession that she had singularly trusted him to her hurt, in the close of this speech, which went to Easton’s heart. “No, there is nothing for me to say in extenuation. Even if I tell you—”
“‘Sh!” cried Mrs. Farrell, putting her hand down at her side and electrically touching that wrist of his next to her; “I thought somebody was coming. Yes, I know. Even if you tell me that you meant no harm—and I don’t believe you did—still, don’t you know— Oh!” she broke off, “why is it that there isn’t some common ground for men and women to meet on, and be helpful to each other? Must they always be either lovers or enemies? Yes, enemies; it’s really a state of almost warfare; there can’t be any kindness, any freedom, any sincerity. And yet there are times in every woman’s life when she does long so for the intelligence as well as the sympathy of some good man; and she can’t have it unless she’s married or engaged. She often wants to see how some action of her own looks through a man’s eyes, and the wisest woman can’t tell her! Every new disappointment that she meets with is harder to bear. I didn’t mind your kissing my hand; that’s nothing; it might even be something that a woman would be proud of; but by the way you did it you shocked and frightened me; I saw that you had misunderstood me, and I—I was afraid you didn’t—respect me.”