“It’s the same with a man when he has a wife.” Hitherto the conversation had had so much of milk-and-water in its composition that Dalrymple found himself able to keep it up and go on with his background at the same time. If she could only be kept in the same dim cloud of sentiment, if the hot rays of the sun of romance could be kept from breaking through the mist till Miss Van Siever should come, it might still be well. He had known her to wander about within the clouds for an hour together, without being able to find her way into the light. “It’s all the same with a man when he has got a wife,” he said. “Of course one has to suffer for two, when one, so to say, is two.”
“And what happens when one has to suffer for three?” she asked.
“You mean when a woman has children?”
“I mean nothing of the kind, Conway; and you must know that I do not, unless your feelings are indeed blunted. But worldly success has, I suppose, blunted them.”
“I rather fancy not,” he said. “I think they are pretty nearly as sharp as ever.”
“I know mine are. Oh, how I wish I could rid myself of them! But it cannot be done. Age will not blunt them—I am sure of that,” said Mrs. Broughton. “I wish it would.”
He had determined not to talk about herself if the subject could be in any way avoided; but now he felt that he was driven up into a corner;—now he was forced to speak to her of her own personality. “You have no experience yet as to that. How can you say what age will do?”
“Age does not go by years,” said Mrs. Dobbs Broughton. “We all know that. ‘His hair was grey, but not with years.’ Look here, Conway,” and she moved back her tresses from off her temples to show him that there were gray hairs behind. He did not see them; and had they been very visible she might not perhaps have been so ready to exhibit them. “No one can say that length of years has blanched them. I have no secrets from you about my age. One should not be grey before one has reached thirty.”
“I did not see a changed hair.”
“ ’Twas the fault of your eyes, then, for there are plenty of them. And what is it has made them grey?”
“They say that hot rooms will do it.”
“Hot rooms! No, Conway, it does not come from heated atmosphere. It comes from a cold heart, a chilled heart, a frozen heart, a heart that is all ice.” She was getting out of the cloud into the heat now, and he could only hope that Miss Van Siever would come soon. “The world is beginning with you, Conway, and yet you are as old as I am. It is ending with me, and yet I am as young as you are. But I do not know why I talk of all this. It is simply folly—utter folly. I had not meant to speak of myself; but I did wish to say a few words to you of your own future. I suppose I may still speak to you as a friend?”
“I hope you will always do that.”
“Nay—I will make no such promise. That I will always have a friend’s feeling for you, a friend’s interest in your welfare, a friend’s triumph in your success—that I will promise. But friendly words, Conway, are sometimes misunderstood.”
“Never by me,” said he.
“No, not by you—certainly not by you. I did not mean that. I did not expect that you should misinterpret them.” Then she laughed hysterically—a little low, gurgling, hysterical laugh; and after that she wiped her eyes, and then she smiled, and then she put her hand very gently upon his shoulder. “Thank God, Conway, we are quite safe there—are we not?”
He had made a blunder, and it was necessary that he should correct it. His watch was lying in the trough of his easel, and he looked at it and wondered why Miss Van Siever was not there. He had tripped, and he must make a little struggle and recover his step. “As I said before, it shall never be misunderstood by me. I have never been vain enough to suppose for a moment that there was any other feeling—not for a moment. You women can be so careful, while we men are always off our guard! A man loves because he cannot help it; but a woman has been careful, and answers him—with friendship. Perhaps I am wrong to say that I never thought of winning anything more; but I never think of winning more now.” Why the mischief didn’t Miss Van Siever come! In another five minutes, despite himself, he would be on his knees, making a mock declaration, and she would be pouring forth the vial of her mock wrath, or giving him mock counsel as to the restraint of his passion. He had gone through it all before, and was tired of it; but for his life he did not know how to help himself.
“Conway,” said she, gravely, “how dare you address me in such language?”
“Of course it is very wrong; I know that.”
“I’m not speaking of myself, now. I have learned to think so little of myself, as even to be indifferent to the feeling of the injury you are doing me. My life is a blank, and I almost think that nothing can hurt me further. I have not heart left enough to break; no, not enough to be broken. It is not of myself that I am thinking, when I ask you how you dare to address me in such language. Do you not know that it is an injury to another?”
“To what other?” asked Conway Dalrymple, whose mind was becoming rather confused, and who was not quite sure whether the other one was Mr. Dobbs Broughton, or somebody
