Theron gave a tug at the ribbon, to show the joy he had in her delicate chaff. “No, it is you who are secretive,” he said. “You never told me about—about the piano.”
The word was out! A minute before it had seemed incredible to him that he should ever have the courage to utter it—but here it was. He laid firm hold upon the ribbon, which it appeared hung from her waist, and drew himself a trifle nearer to her. “I could never have consented to take it, I’m afraid,” he went on in a low voice, “if I had known. And even as it is, I fear it won’t be possible.”
“What are you afraid of?” asked Celia. “Why shouldn’t you take it? People in your profession never do get anything unless it’s given to them, do they? I’ve always understood it was like that. I’ve often read of donation parties—that’s what they’re called, isn’t it?—where everybody is supposed to bring some gift to the minister. Very well, then, I’ve simply had a donation party of my own, that’s all. Unless you mean that my being a Catholic makes a difference. I had supposed you were quite free from that kind of prejudice.”
“So I am! Believe me, I am!” urged Theron. “When I’m with you, it seems impossible to realize that there are people so narrow and contracted in their natures as to take account of such things. It is another atmosphere that I breathe near you. How could you imagine that such a thought—about our difference of creed—would enter my head? In fact,” he concluded with a nervous half-laugh, “there isn’t any such difference. Whatever your religion is, it’s mine too. You remember—you adopted me as a Greek.”
“Did I?” she rejoined. “Well, if that’s the case, it leaves you without a leg to stand on. I challenge you to find any instance where a Greek made any difficulties about accepting a piano from a friend. But seriously—while we are talking about it—you introduced the subject: I didn’t—I might as well explain to you that I had no such intention, when I picked the instrument out. It was later, when I was talking to Thurston’s people about the price, that the whim seized me. Now it is the one fixed rule of my life to obey my whims. Whatever occurs to me as a possibly pleasant thing to do, straight like a hash, I go and do it. It is the only way that a person with means, with plenty of money, can preserve any freshness of character. If they stop to think what it would be prudent to do, they get crusted over immediately. That is the curse of rich people—they teach themselves to distrust and restrain every impulse toward unusual actions. They get to feel that it is more necessary for them to be cautious and conventional than it is for others. I would rather work at a washtub than occupy that attitude toward my bank account. I fight against any sign of it that I detect rising in my mind. The instant a wish occurs to me, I rush to gratify it. That is my theory of life. That accounts for the piano; and I don’t see that you’ve anything to say about it at all.”
It seemed very convincing, this theory of life. Somehow, the thought of Miss Madden’s riches had never before assumed prominence in Theron’s mind. Of course her father was very wealthy, but it had not occurred to him that the daughter’s emancipation might run to the length of a personal fortune. He knew so little of rich people and their ways!
He lifted his head, and looked up at Celia with an awakened humility and awe in his glance. The glamour of a separate banking-account shone upon her. Where the soft woodland light played in among the strands of her disordered hair, he saw the veritable gleam of gold. A mysterious new suggestion of power blended itself with the beauty of her face, was exhaled in the faint perfume of her garments. He maintained a timorous hold upon the ribbon, wondering at his hardihood in touching it, or being near her at all.
“What surprises me,” he heard himself saying, “is that you are contented to stay in Octavius. I should think that you would travel—go abroad—see the beautiful things of the world, surround yourself with the luxuries of big cities—and that sort of thing.”
Celia regarded the forest prospect straight in front of her with a pensive gaze. “Sometime—no doubt I will sometime,” she said abstractedly.
“One reads so much nowadays,” he went on, “of American heiresses going to Europe and marrying dukes and noblemen. I suppose you will do that too. Princes would fight one another for you.”
The least touch of a smile softened for an instant the impassivity of her countenance. Then she stared harder than ever at the vague, leafy distance. “That is the old-fashioned idea,” she said, in a musing tone, “that women must belong to somebody, as if they were curios, or statues, or racehorses. You don’t understand, my friend, that I have a different view. I am myself, and I belong to myself, exactly as much as any man. The notion that any other human being could conceivably obtain the slightest property rights in me is as preposterous, as ridiculous, as—what shall I say?—as the notion of your being taken out with a chain on your neck and sold by auction as a slave, down on the canal bridge. I should be ashamed to be alive for another day, if any other thought were possible to me.”
“That is not the generally accepted view, I should think,” faltered Theron.
“No more is it the accepted view that young married Methodist ministers should sit out alone in the woods with redheaded Irish girls. No, my friend, let us find what the generally accepted views are, and
