“Mrs. Arabin told me. I could not be away when you were coming, but perhaps it would have been better.”
“Is it so? Must it be so? Must you say that to me, Lily? Think of it for a moment, dear.”
“I have thought of it.”
“One word from you, yes or no, spoken now is to be everything to me for always. Lily, cannot you say yes?” She did not answer him, but walked further away from him to another window. “Try to say yes. Look round at me with one look that may only half mean it;—that may tell me that it shall not positively be no forever.” I think that she almost tried to turn her face to him; but be that as it may, she kept her eyes steadily fixed upon the windowpane. “Lily,” he said, “it is not that you are hard-hearted—perhaps not altogether that you do not like me. I think that you believe things against me that are not true.” As she heard this she moved her foot angrily upon the carpet. She had almost forgotten M. D., but now he had reminded her of the note. She assured herself that she had never believed anything against him except on evidence that was incontrovertible. But she was not going to speak to him on such a matter as that! It would not become her to accuse him. “Mrs. Arabin tells me that you doubt whether I am in earnest,” he said.
Upon hearing this she flashed round upon him almost angrily. “I never said that.”
“If you will ask me for any token of earnestness, I will give it you.”
“I want no token.”
“The best sign of earnestness a man can give generally in such a matter, is to show how ready he is to be married.”
“I never said anything about earnestness.”
“At the risk of making you angry I will go on, Lily. Of course when you tell me that you will have nothing to say to me, I try to amuse myself.”
“Yes; by writing love-letters to M. D.,” said Lily to herself.
“What is a poor fellow to do? I tell you fairly that when I leave you I swear to myself that I will make love to the first girl I can see who will listen to me—to twenty, if twenty will let me. I feel I have failed, and it is so I punish myself for my failure.” There was something in this which softened her brow, though she did not intend that it should be so; and she turned away again, that he might not see that her brow was softened. “But, Lily, the hope ever comes back again, and then neither the one nor the twenty are of avail—even to punish me. When I look forward and see what it might be if you were with me, how green it all looks and how lovely, in spite of all the vows I have made, I cannot help coming back again.” She was now again near the window, and he had not followed her. As she neither turned towards him nor answered him, he moved from the table near which he was standing on to the rug before the fire, and leaned with both his elbows on the mantelpiece. He could still watch her in the mirror over the fireplace, and could see that she was still seeming to gaze out upon the street. And had he not moved her? I think he had so far moved her now, that she had ceased to think of the woman who had written to her—that she had ceased to reject him in her heart on the score of such levities as that! If there were M. D.’s, like sunken rocks, in his course, whose fault was it? He was ready enough to steer his bark into the tranquil blue waters, if only she would aid him. I think that all his sins on that score were at this moment forgiven him. He had told her now what to him would be green and beautiful, and she did not find herself able to disbelieve him. She had banished M. D. out of her mind, but in doing so she admitted other reminiscences into it. And then—was she in a moment to be talked out of the resolution of years; and was she to give up herself, not because she loved, but because the man who talked to her talked so well that he deserved a reward? Was she now to be as light, as foolish, as easy, as in those former days from which she had learned her wisdom? A picture of green lovely things could be delicious to her eyes as to his; but even for such a picture as that the price might be too dear! Of all living men—of all men living in their present lives—she loved best this man who was now waiting for some word of answer to his words, and she did love him dearly; she would have tended him if sick, have supplied him if in want, have mourned for him if dead, with the bitter grief of true affection;—but she could not say to herself that he should be her lord and master, the head of her house, the owner of herself, the ruler of her life. The shipwreck to which she had once come, and the fierce regrets which had thence arisen, had forced her to think too much of these things.
“Lily,” he said, still facing towards the mirror, “will you not come to me and speak to me?” She turned round, and stood a moment looking at him,
