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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Love Story Reversed, by Edward Bellamy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Love Story Reversed
+       1898
+
+Author: Edward Bellamy
+
+Release Date: September 21, 2007 [EBook #22711]
+Last Updated: March 8, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LOVE STORY REVERSED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A LOVE STORY REVERSED
+
+By Edward Bellamy
+
+1898
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+The golden hands of the parlor clock point glimmeringly to an hour
+after midnight, and the house is still. The gas is turned almost out,
+but the flickering of the dying sea-coal fire in the grate fitfully
+illumines the forms and faces of two young women, who are seated before
+it, talking earnestly in low tones. It is apparent from their costumes
+that they have been spending the evening out.
+
+The fair girl in the low chair, gazing pensively into the fire, is Maud
+Elliott, the daughter of the house. Not generally called handsome, her
+features are good and well balanced, and her face is altogether a sweet
+and wholesome one. She is rather tall, and the most critical admit
+that she has a fine figure. Her eyes are blue, and their clear, candid
+expression indicates an unusually sincere and simple character. But,
+unfortunately, it is only her friends who are fully conversant with the
+expression of her eyes, for she is very shy. Shyness in little people
+is frequently piquant, but its effect in girls of the Juno style is too
+often that of awkwardness. Her friends call Maud Elliott stately; those
+who do not like her call her stiff; while indifferent persons speak of
+her as rather too reserved and dignified in manner to be pleasing. In
+fact, her excess of dignity is merely the cloak of her shyness, and
+nobody knows better than she that there is too much of it. Those
+who know her at all well know that she is not dull, but with mere
+acquaintances she often passes for that. Only her intimate friends are
+aware what wit and intelligence, what warmth and strength of feeling,
+her coldness when in company conceals.
+
+No one better understands this, because no one knows her better or
+has known her longer, than her present companion before the fire, Lucy
+Mer-ritt. They were roommates and bosom friends at boarding-school; and
+Lucy, who recently has been married, is now on her first visit to her
+friend since that event. She is seated on a hassock, with her hands
+clasped over her knees, looking up at Maud,--an attitude well suited
+to her _petite_ figure. She is going home on the morrow, or rather on
+the day already begun; and this fact, together with the absorbing nature
+of the present conversation, accounts for the lateness of the session.
+
+“And so, Maud,” she is saying, while she regards her friend with an
+expression at once sympathetic and amused,--“and so that is what has
+been making your letters so dismal lately. I fancied that nothing less
+could suggest such melancholy views of life. The truth is, I came
+on this visit as much as anything to find out about him. He is a
+good-looking fellow, certainly; and, from what little chance I had
+to form an opinion to-night, seems sensible enough to make it quite
+incredible that he should not be in love with such a girl in a thousand
+as you. Are you quite sure he is n't?”
+
+“You had a chance to judge to-night,” replied Maud, with a hard little
+laugh. “You overheard our conversation. 'Good-evening, Miss Elliott;
+jolly party, is n't it?' That was all he had to say to me, and quite
+as much as usual. Of course we are old acquaintances, and he 's always
+pleasant and civil: he couldn't be anything else; but he wastes mighty
+little time on me. I don't blame him for preferring other girls'
+society. He would show very little taste if he did not enjoy Ella
+Perry's company better than that of a tongue-tied thing like me. She is
+a thousand times prettier and wittier and more graceful than I am.”
+
+“Nonsense,” exclaimed Lucy. “She is a flirt and a conceited little minx.
+She is not to be mentioned the same day with you; and he would think so,
+if he could only get to know you. But how in the world is he ever going
+to? Why, you seem to be shyer than ever, poor dear. You were actually
+distant, almost chilling, in your manner towards him to-night, although
+I know you didn't mean to be.”
+
+“I know it. Don't I know it!” groaned Maud. “I always am shyer and
+stiffer with him than with any one else. O Lucy! you can't guess what
+a dreadful thing it is to be shy. It is as if you were surrounded by a
+fog, which benumbs you, and chills all who approach you. I dare say he
+thinks that I actually dislike him. I could not blame him if he did. And
+I can't help it. I could never make him understand anything else, unless
+I told him in so many words.”
+
+The tears filled her eyes as she spoke, and hung heavy on the lashes.
+Lucy took one of her hands in both of hers, and pressed and stroked it
+caressingly.
+
+“I know you could n't, poor dear, I know you could n't,” she said; “and
+you cannot tell him in so many words because, forsooth, you are a woman.
+I often think, Maud, what a heap of trouble would be saved if women,
+when they cannot make themselves understood in other ways, were allowed
+to speak out as men do, without fear or reproach. Some day they will,
+when the world gets wiser,--at least I think so. Why should a woman
+have to hide her love, as if it were a disgraceful secret? Why is it any
+more a disgrace to her than to a man?”
+
+“I can't quite see what good it would do me,” said Maud, “even if women
+could 'speak out,' as you say. If a man did n't care for one already,
+I can't see how it would make him know that one cared for him. I should
+think she would prefer to keep her secret.”
+
+“That is n't what men do,” replied Lucy. “If they have such a secret,
+they tell it right away, and that is why they succeed. The way half the
+women are induced to fall in love is by being told the men are in love
+with them; you know that.”
+
+“But men are different,” suggested Maud.
+
+“Not a bit of it: they 're more so, if anything,” was the oracular
+response of the young wife. “Possibly there are men,” she continued,--
+“the story-tellers say so, anyhow,--who are attracted by repulsion and
+warmed by coldness, who like resistance for the pleasure of overcoming
+it. There must be a spice of the tyrant in such men. I wouldn't want to
+marry one of them. Fortunately, they're not common. I've noticed that
+love, like lightning, generally takes the path of least resistance with
+men as well as women. Just suppose now, in your case, that Mr. Burton
+had followed us home, and had overheard this conversation from behind
+that door.”
+
+“No, no,” she added laughing, as Maud looked around apprehensively; “he
+is n't there. But if he had been there and had overheard you own that
+you were pining for him, what a lucky chance it would have been! If he,
+or any other man, once knew that a magnificent girl like you had done
+him the honor to fall in love with him, half the battle would be won,
+or I 'm no judge of men. But such lucky eavesdropping only happens in
+stories and plays; and for lack of it this youth is in a fair way to
+marry a chit of a girl who does not think half so much of him as you do,
+and of whom he will never think a quarter what he would of you. He is
+not, probably, entirely stupid either. All he wants, very likely, is
+just a hint as to where his true happiness lies: but, being a woman, you
+can't give it in words; and, being Maud Elliott, you can't give it in
+any other way, if you died for it. Really, Maud, the canon which
+makes it a woman's duty to be purely passive in love is exasperating,
+especially as it does not represent what anybody really believes, but
+only what they pretend to believe. Everybody knows that unrequited love
+comes as often to women as to men. Why, then, should n't they have an
+equal chance to seek requital? Why have not they the same right to look
+out for the happiness of their lives by all honorable means that men
+have? Surely it is far more to them to marry the men they love than to
+a man to marry any particular woman. It seems to me that making suitable
+matches is not such an easy matter that society can afford to leave the
+chief part of it to the stupider sex, giving women merely the right of
+veto. To be sure, even now women who are artful enough manage to evade
+the prohibition laid on their lips and make their preference known. I am
+proud to say that I have a royal husband, who would never have looked
+my way if I had not set out to make him do so; and if I do say it, who
+should n't, I flatter myself he has a better wife than he could have
+picked out without my help. There are plenty of women who can say the
+same thing; but, unluckily, it is the best sort of women, girls like
+you,--simple, sincere, noble, without arts of any sort,--who can't
+do this. On them the etiquette that forbids women to reveal their hearts
+except by subterfuge operates as a total disability. They can only
+sit with folded hands, looking on, pretending not to mind, while their
+husbands are run away with by others.”
+
+Maud took up the poker and carefully arranged the coals under the grate
+in a heap. Then she said: “Suppose a girl did what you 've been speaking
+of. I mean, suppose she really said such a thing to a man,--said that
+she cared for him, or anything like that,--what do you suppose he
+would think of her? Don't you fancy she would be in danger of making him
+think very cheaply of her?”
+
+“If she thought he were that kind of a man,” replied Lucy, “I can't
+understand her ever falling in love with him. Of course, I 'm not saying
+that he would necessarily respond by falling in love with her. She would
+have to take her chance of that; but I 'm sure, if he were a gentleman,
+she need have no fear of his thinking unworthily of her. If I had spoken
+to Dick in that way, even if he had never wanted to marry me, I know he
+would have had a soft spot for me in his heart all the rest of his life,
+out of which even his wife would not have quite crowded me. Why, how do
+we think of men whom we have refused? Do we despise them? Do we ridicule
+them? Some girls may, but they are not ladies. A low fellow might laugh
+at a woman who revealed a fondness for him which he did not return; but
+a gentleman, never. Her secret would be safe with him.”
+
+“Girls!” It was the voice of Mrs. Elliott speaking from the upper hall.
+“Do you know how late it is? It is after one o'clock.”
+
+“I suppose we might as well go to bed,” said Lucy. “There's no use
+sitting up to wait for women to get their rights. They won't get them
+to-night, I dare say; though, mark my word, some day they will.”
+
+“This affair of yours may come out all right yet,” she said hopefully,
+as they went upstairs together. “If it does not, you can console
+yourself with thinking that people in general, and especially girls,
+never know what is good for them till afterward. Do you remember that
+summer I was at the beach, what a ninny I made of myself over that
+little Mr. Parker? How providential it was for me that he did not
+reciprocate. It gives me the cold shivers when I think what might have
+become of me if he' had proposed.”
+
+At the door of her room Lucy said again: “Remember, you are to come to
+me in New York for a long visit soon. Perhaps you will find there are
+other people in the world then.”
+
+Maud smiled absently, and kissed her good-night. She seemed preoccupied,
+and did not appear to have closely followed what her lively friend was
+saying.
+
+The following afternoon, as she was walking home after seeing Lucy on
+the cars, she met a gentleman who lifted his hat to her. It was Arthur
+Burton. His office was on the one main street of the small New England
+city which is the scene of these events, and when out walking or
+shopping Maud often met him. There was therefore nothing at all
+extraordinary in the fact of their meeting. What was extraordinary was
+its discomposing effect upon her on this particular afternoon. She had
+been absorbed a moment before in a particularly brown study, taking no
+more notice of surrounding objects and persons than was necessary to
+avoid accidents. On seeing him she started perceptibly, and forthwith
+became a striking study in red. She continued to blush so intensely
+after he had passed that, catching sight of her crimson cheeks in a shop
+window, she turned down a side street and took a quieter way home.
+
+There was nothing particularly remarkable about Arthur Burton.
+Fortunately there does not need to be anything remarkable about young
+men to induce very charming girls to fall in love with them. He was just
+a good-looking fellow, with agreeable manners and average opinions. He
+was regarded as a very promising young man, and was quite a favorite
+among the young ladies. If he noticed Maud's confusion on meeting him,
+he certainly did not think of associating it in any way with himself.
+For although they had been acquaintances these many years, and belonged
+to the same social set, he had never entertained the first sentimental
+fancy concerning her. So far as she had impressed him at all, it was as
+a thoroughly nice girl, of a good family, not bad-looking, but rather
+dull in society, and with very little facility in conversation; at least
+he had always found it hard to talk with her.
+
+Ten days or a fortnight after Lucy Merritt's departure there was a
+little party at Ella Perry's, and both Arthur Burton and Maud were
+present. It was the custom of the place for the young men to escort
+the girls home after evening entertainments, and when the couples were
+rightly assorted, the walk home was often the most agreeable part of the
+evening. Although they were not engaged, Arthur imagined that he was in
+love with Ella Perry, and she had grown into the habit of looking
+upon him as her particular knight. Towards the end of the evening he
+jestingly asked her whom he should go home with, since he could not that
+evening be her escort.
+
+“Maud Elliott,” promptly suggested Ella, selecting the girl of those
+present in her opinion least likely to prove a diverting companion. So
+it chanced that Arthur offered his company to Maud.
+
+It struck him, as she came downstairs with her wraps on, that she
+was looking remarkably pale. She had worn a becoming color during the
+evening, but she seemed to have lost it in the dressing-room. As they
+walked away from the house Arthur began, to the best of his ability, to
+make himself agreeable, but with very poor success. Not only was Maud,
+as usual, a feeble contributor of original matter, but her random
+answers showed that she paid little attention to what he was saying.
+He was mentally registering a vow never again to permit himself to be
+committed to a tête-à-tête with her, when she abruptly broke the silence
+which had succeeded his conversational efforts. Her voice was
+curiously unsteady, and she seemed at first to have some difficulty in
+articulating, and had to go back and repeat her first words. What she
+said was:--
+
+“It was very good in you to come home with me to-night. It is a great
+pleasure to me.”
+
+“You 're ironical this evening, Miss Elliott,” he replied, laughing, and
+the least bit nettled.
+
+It was bore enough doing the polite to a girl who had nothing on her
+mind without being gibed by her to boot.
+
+“I 'm not ironical,” she answered. “I should make poor work at irony. I
+meant just what I said.”
+
+“The goodness was on your part in letting me come,” he said, mollified
+by the unmistakable sincerity of her tone, but somewhat embarrassed
+withal at the decidedly flat line of remark she had chosen.
+
+“Oh, no,” she replied; “the goodness was not on my side. I was only too
+glad of your company, and might as well own it. Indeed, I will confess
+to telling a fib to one young man who offered to see me home, merely
+because I hoped the idea of doing so would occur to you.”
+
+This plump admission of partiality for his society fairly staggered
+Arthur. Again he thought, “She must be quizzing me;” and, to make sure,
+stole a sidelong glance at her. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, and
+the pallor and the tense expression of her face indicated that she was
+laboring under strong excitement. She certainly did not look like one in
+a quizzing mood.
+
+“I am very much flattered,” he managed to say.
+
+“I don't know whether you feel so or not,” she replied. “I'm afraid you
+don't feel flattered at all, but I--I wanted to--tell you.”
+
+The pathetic tremor of her voice lent even greater significance to her
+words than in themselves they would have conveyed.
+
+She was making a dead set at him. There was not a shadow of doubt any
+longer about that. As the full realization of his condition flashed upon
+him, entirely alone with her and a long walk before them, the strength
+suddenly oozed out of his legs, he felt distinctly cold about the spine,
+and the perspiration started out on his forehead. His tongue clung to
+the roof of his mouth, and he could only abjectly wonder what was coming
+next. It appeared that nothing more was coming. A dead silence lasted
+for several blocks. Every block seemed to Arthur a mile long, as if he
+were walking in a hasheesh dream. He felt that she was expecting him to
+say something, to make some sort of response to her advances; but what
+response, in Heaven's name, could he make! He really could not make
+love. He had none to make; and had never dreamed of making any to Maud
+Elliott, of all girls. Yet the idea of letting her suppose him such an
+oaf as not to understand her, or not to appreciate the honor a lady's
+preference did him, was intolerable. He could not leave it so.
+
+Finally, with a vague idea of a compromise between the impossible
+alternative of making love to her, which he could n't, and seeming an
+insensible boor, which he wouldn't, he laid his disengaged hand upon
+hers as it rested on his arm. It was his intention to apply to it a
+gentle pressure, which, while committing him to nothing, might tend to
+calm her feelings and by its vaguely reassuring influence help to stave
+off a crisis for the remainder of their walk. He did not, however,
+succeed in carrying out the scheme; for at the moment of contact her
+hand eluded his, as quicksilver glides from the grasp. There was no hint
+of coquettish hesitation in its withdrawal. She snatched it away as
+if his touch had burned her; and although she did not at the same
+time wholly relinquish his arm, that was doubtless to avoid making the
+situation, on the street as they were, too awkward.
+
+A moment before only concerned to evade her apparent advances, Arthur
+found himself in the position of one under rebuke for offering an
+unwarranted familiarity to a lady. There was no question that he had
+utterly misconstrued her previous conduct. It was very strange that he
+could have been such a fool; but he was quite too dazed to disentangle
+the evidence just then, and there was no doubt about the fact.
+
+“Pardon me,” he stammered, too much overcome with confusion and chagrin
+to be able to judge whether it would have been better to be silent.
+
+The quickness with which the reply came showed that she had been on the
+point of speaking herself.
+
+“You need not ask my pardon,” she said. Her tones quivered with
+excitement and her utterance was low and swift. “I don't blame you in
+the least, after the way I have talked to you to-night. But I did not
+mean that you should think lightly of me. I have said nothing right,
+nothing that I meant to. What I wanted to have you understand was that I
+care for you very much.” Her voice broke here, but she caught her breath
+and went right on. “I wanted you to know it somehow, and since I could
+not make you know it by ways clever girls might, I thought I would tell
+you plainly. It really amounts to the same thing; don't you think so?
+and I know you 'll keep my secret. You need n't say anything. I know you
+'ve nothing to say and may never have. That makes no difference. You owe
+me nothing merely because I care for you. Don't pity me. I'm not so much
+ashamed as you 'd suppose. It all seems so natural when it's once said.
+You need n't be afraid of me. I shall never say this again or trouble
+you at all. Only be a little good to me; that's all.”
+
+She delivered this little speech almost in one breath, with headlong,
+explosive utterance, as if it were something she had to go through
+with, cost what it might, and only wanted somehow to get out the words,
+regardless, for the time, of their manner or effect. She ended with
+an hysterical sob, and Arthur felt her hand tremble on his arm as she
+struggled with an emotion that threatened to overcome her. But it was
+over almost instantly; and without giving him a chance to speak, she
+exclaimed, with an entire alteration of tone and manner:--
+
+“Did you see that article in the 'Gazette' this morning about the craze
+for collecting pottery which has broken out in the big cities? Do you
+suppose it will reach here? What do you think of it?”
+
+Now it was perfectly true, as she had told him, that Arthur had nothing
+whatever to say in response to the declaration she had made; but all
+the same it is possible, if she had not just so abruptly diverted the
+conversation, that he would then and there have placed himself and all
+his worldly goods at her disposal. He would have done this, although
+five minutes before he had had no more notion of marrying her than the
+Emperor of China's daughter, merely because every manly instinct cried
+out against permitting a nice girl to protest her partiality for him
+without meeting her half-way. Afterward, when he realized how near
+he had come to going over the verge of matrimony, it was with such
+reminiscent terror as chills the blood of the awakened sleep-walker
+looking up at the dizzy ridge-pole he has trodden with but a hair's
+breadth between him and eternity.
+
+During the remainder of the way to Maud's door the conversation upon
+pottery, the weather, and miscellaneous topics was incessant,--almost
+breathless, in fact. Arthur did not know what he was talking about,
+and Maud probably no better what she was saying, but there was not a
+moment's silence. A stranger meeting them would have thought, “What a
+remarkably jolly couple!”
+
+“I 'm much obliged for your escort,” said Maud, as she stood upon her
+doorstep.
+
+“Not at all. Great pleasure, I 'm sure.”
+
+“Good-evening.”
+
+“Good-evening.” And she disappeared within the door.
+
+Arthur walked away with a slow, mechanical step. His fallen jaw, open
+mouth, and generally idiotic expression of countenance would have
+justified his detention by any policeman who might have met him, on
+suspicion of being a feeble-minded person escaped from custody. Turning
+the first corner, he kept on with the same dragging step till he came
+to a vacant lot. Then, as if he were too feeble to get any farther, he
+stopped and leaned his back against the fence. Bracing his legs before
+him so as to serve as props, he thrust his hands deep in his pockets,
+and raising his eyes appealingly to the stars, ejaculated, “Proposed to,
+by Jove!” A period of profound introspection followed, and then he broke
+forth: “Well, I 'll be hanged!” emphasizing each word with a slow nod.
+Then he began to laugh,--not noisily; scarcely audibly, indeed; but
+with the deep, unctuous chuckle of one who gloats over some exquisitely
+absurd situation, some jest of many facets, each contributing its ray of
+humor.
+
+Yet, if this young man had tremblingly confessed his love to a lady, he
+would have expected her to take it seriously.
+
+Nevertheless, let us not be too severe with him for laughing. It was
+what the average young man probably would have done under similar
+circumstances, and it was particularly stated at the outset that there
+was nothing at all extraordinary about Arthur Burton. For the rest, it
+was not a wholly bad symptom. Had he been a conceited fellow, he very
+likely would not have laughed. He would have stroked his mustache and
+thought it quite natural that a woman should fall in love with him, and
+even would have felt a pity for the poor thing. It was, in fact, because
+he was not vain that he found the idea so greatly amusing.
+
+On parting with Arthur, Maud rushed upstairs and locked herself in her
+room. She threw herself into the first chair she stumbled over in the
+dimly lighted apartment, and sat there motionless, her eyes fixed on
+the empty air with an expression of desperation, her hands clinched so
+tightly that the nails bit the palms. She breathed only at considerable
+intervals, with short, quick inhalations.
+
+Yet the act which caused this extraordinary revulsion of feeling had
+not been the result of any sudden impulse. It was the execution of a
+deliberate resolve which had originated in her mind on the night of Lucy
+Merritt's departure, as she sat with her before the fire, listening to
+her fanciful talk about the advantages which might be expected to attend
+franker relations in love affairs between men and women. Deeply in love,
+and at the same time feeling that in the ordinary course of events she
+had nothing but disappointment to look forward to, she was in a state
+of mind just desperate enough to catch at the idea that if Arthur Burton
+knew of her love, there would be some chance of his returning it. It
+seemed to her that if he did not, she could be no worse off than she
+was already. She had brooded over the subject day and night ever since,
+considering from every point of view of abstract right or true feminine
+propriety the question whether a woman might, without real prejudice to
+her maidenly modesty, tell a man that she cared for him, without waiting
+for him to ask her to marry him. Her conclusion had been that there was
+no reason, apart from her own feelings, why any woman, who dared do it,
+should not; and if she thought her life's happiness dependent on her
+doing it, that she would be a weak creature who did not dare.
+
+Her resolve once taken, she had only waited an opportunity to carry it
+out; and that evening, when Arthur offered to walk home with her,
+she felt that the opportunity had come. Little wonder that she came
+downstairs from the dressing-room looking remarkably pale, and that
+after they had started, and she was trying to screw up her courage to
+the speaking point, her responses to his conversational efforts should
+have been at random. It was terribly hard work, this screwing up
+her courage. All the fine arguments which had convinced her that her
+intended course was justifiable and right had utterly collapsed. She
+could not recall one of them. What she had undertaken to do seemed
+shocking, hateful, immodest, scandalous, impossible. But there was a
+bed-rock of determination to her character; and a fixed, dogged resolve
+to do the thing she had once made up her mind to, come what might, had
+not permitted her to draw back. Hardly knowing what she was about, or
+the words she was saying, she had plunged blindly ahead. Somehow she had
+got through with it, and now she seemed to herself to be sitting amidst
+the ruins of her womanhood.
+
+It was particularly remarked that Arthur Burton's laughter, as he
+leaned against the fence a square away in convulsions of merriment,
+was noiseless, but it was perfectly audible to Maud, as she sat in
+the darkness of her chamber. Nay, more: although his thoughts were not
+uttered at all, she overheard them, and among them some which the young
+man, to do him justice, had the grace not to think.
+
+The final touch to her humiliation was imparted by the reflection that
+she had done the thing so stupidly,--so blunderingly. If she must
+needs tell a man she loved him, could she not have told him in language
+which at least would have been forcible and dignified? Instead of that,
+she had begun with mawkish compliments, unable in her excitement to
+think of anything else, and ended with an incoherent jumble that barely
+escaped being hysterical He would think that she was as lacking in sense
+as in womanly self-respect. At last she turned up the gas, for very
+shame avoiding a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she did so, and
+bathed her burning cheeks.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Meanwhile Arthur had reached home and was likewise sitting in his room,
+thinking the matter over from his point of view, with the assistance of
+a long-stemmed pipe. But instead of turning the gas down, as Maud had
+done, he had turned it up, and, having lighted all the jets in the room,
+had planted his chair directly in front of the big looking-glass, so
+that he might enjoy the reflection of his own amusement and be doubly
+entertained.
+
+By this time, however, amazement and amusement had passed their acute
+stages. He was considering somewhat more seriously, but still with
+frequent attacks of mirth, the practical aspects of the predicament in
+which Maud's declaration had placed him; and the more he considered it,
+the more awkward as well as absurd that predicament appeared. They had
+the same acquaintances, went to the same parties, and were very likely
+to meet whenever they went out of an evening. What if she should
+continue to pursue him? If she did, he either would have to cut society,
+which had promised to be unusually lively that winter, or provide
+himself with a chaperon for protection. For the first time in his life
+he was in a position to appreciate the courage of American girls, who,
+without a tremor, venture themselves, year in and year out, in the
+company of gentlemen from whom they are exposed at any time to proposals
+of a tender nature. It was a pity if he could not be as brave as girls
+who are afraid of a mouse. Doubtless it was all in getting used to it.
+
+On reflection, he should not need a chaperon. Had she not assured him
+that he need not be afraid of her, that she would never repeat what she
+had said, nor trouble him again? How her arm trembled on his as she was
+saying that, and how near she came to breaking down! And this was Maud
+Elliott, the girl with whom he had never ventured to flirt with as with
+some of the others, because she was so reserved and distant. The
+very last girl anybody would expect such a thing from! If it had been
+embarrassing for him to hear it, what must it have cost such a girl as
+Maud Elliott to say it! How did she ever muster the courage?
+
+He took the pipe from his mouth, and the expression of his eyes became
+fixed, while his cheeks reddened slowly and deeply. In putting himself
+in Maud's place, he was realizing for the first time how strong must
+have been the feeling which had nerved her to such a step. His heart
+began to beat rather thickly. There was something decidedly intoxicating
+in knowing that one was regarded in such a way by a nice girl, even if
+it were impossible, as it certainly was in this case, to reciprocate the
+feeling. He continued to put himself mentally in Maud's place. No doubt
+she was also at that moment sitting alone in her chamber, thinking the
+matter over as he was. She was not laughing, however, that was pretty
+certain; and it required no clairvoyant's gift for him to be sensible
+that her chief concern must be as to what he might be at that moment
+thinking about her. And how had he been thinking about her?
+
+As this question came up to his mind, he saw himself for a moment
+through Maud's eyes, sitting there smoking, chuckling, mowing like an
+idiot before the glass because, forsooth, a girl had put herself at his
+mercy on the mistaken supposition that he was a gentleman. As he saw his
+conduct in this new light, he had such an access of self-contempt that,
+had it been physically convenient, it would have been a relief to kick
+himself. What touching faith she had shown in his ability to take a
+generous, high-minded view of what she had done, and here he had been
+guffawing over it like a corner loafer. He would not, for anything in
+the world, have her know how he had behaved. And she should not. She
+should never know that he was less a gentleman than she believed him.
+
+She had told him, to be sure, that he owed her nothing because she
+loved him; but it had just struck him that he owed her at least, on that
+account, a more solicitous respect and consideration than any one else
+had the right to expect from him.
+
+There were no precedents to guide him, no rules of etiquette prescribing
+the proper thing for a young man to do under such circumstances as
+these. It was a new problem he had to work out, directed only by such
+generous and manly instincts as he might have. Plainly the first thing,
+and in fact the only thing that he could do for her, seeing that he
+really could not return her affection, was to show her that she had not
+forfeited his esteem.
+
+At first he thought of writing her a note and assuring her, in a few
+gracefully turned sentences, of his high respect in spite of what she
+had done. But somehow the gracefully turned sentences did not occur to
+his mind when he took up his pen, and it did occur to him that to write
+persons that you still respect them is equivalent to intimating that
+their conduct justly might have forfeited your respect. Nor would it be
+at all easier to give such an assurance by word of mouth. In fact, quite
+the reverse. The meaning to be conveyed was too delicate for words. Only
+the unspoken language of his manner and bearing could express it without
+offense. It might, however, be some time before chance brought them
+together in society, even if she did not, for a while at least,
+purposely avoid him. Meantime, uncertain how her extraordinary action
+had impressed him, how was she likely to enjoy her thoughts?
+
+In the generous spirit bred of his new contrition, it seemed to him a
+brutal thing to leave her weeks or even days in such a condition of mind
+as must be hers. Inaction on his part was all that was required to make
+her position intolerable. Inaction was not therefore permissible to him.
+It was a matter in which he must take the initiative, and there seemed
+to be just one thing he could do which would at all answer the purpose.
+A brief formal call, with the conversation strictly limited to the
+weather and similarly safe subjects, would make it possible for them to
+meet thereafter in society without too acute embarrassment. Had he
+the pluck for this, the nerve to carry it through? That was the only
+question. There was no doubt as to what he ought to do. It would be an
+awkward call, to put it mildly. It would be skating on terribly thin ice
+--a little thinner, perhaps, than a man ever skated on before.
+
+If he could but hit on some pretext, it scarcely mattered how thin,--
+for of course it would not be intended to deceive her,--the interview
+possibly could be managed. As he reflected, his eyes fell on a large
+volume, purchased in a fit of extravagance, which lay on his table. It
+was a profusely illustrated work on pottery, intended for the victims of
+the fashionable craze on that subject, which at the date of these events
+had but recently reached the United States. His face lighted up with
+a sudden inspiration, and taking a pen he wrote the following note to
+Maud, dating it the next day:--
+
+     Miss Elliott:
+
+     Our conversation last evening on the subject of old china
+     has suggested to me that you might be interested in looking
+     over the illustrations in the volume which I take the
+     liberty of sending with this. If you will be at home this
+     evening, I shall be pleased to call and learn your
+     impression.
+
+     Arthur Burton.
+
+The next morning he sent this note and the book to Maud, and that
+evening called upon her. To say that he did not twist his mustache
+rather nervously as he stood upon the doorstep, waiting for the servant
+to answer the bell, would be to give him credit for altogether more
+nerve than he deserved. He was supported by the consciousness that he
+was doing something rather heroic, but he very much wished it were done.
+As he was shown into the parlor, Maud came forward to meet him. She wore
+a costume which set off her fine figure to striking advantage, and he
+was surprised to perceive that he had never before appreciated what
+a handsome girl she was. It was strange that he should never have
+particularly observed before what beautiful hands she had, and what
+a dazzling fairness of complexion was the complement of her red-brown
+hair. Could it be this stately maiden who had uttered those wild words
+the night before? Could those breathless tones, that piteous
+shame-facedness, have been hers? Surely he must be the victim of some
+strange self-delusion. Only the deep blush that mantled her face as she
+spoke his name, the quickness with which, after one swift glance, her
+eyes avoided his, and the tremor of her hand as he touched it, fully
+assured him that he had not dreamed the whole thing.
+
+A shaded lamp was on the centre-table, where also Arthur's book on
+pottery lay open. After thanking him for sending it and expressing the
+pleasure she had taken in looking it over, Maud plunged at once into
+a discussion of Sèvres, and Cloisonné, and Palissy, and tiles, and all
+that sort of thing, and Arthur bravely kept his end up. Any one who had
+looked casually into the parlor would have thought that old crockery
+was the most absorbing subject on earth to these young people, with
+such eagerness did they compare opinions and debate doubtful points.
+At length, however, even pottery gave out as a resource, especially
+as Arthur ceased, after a while, to do his part, and silences began
+to ensue, during which Maud rapidly turned the pages of the book or
+pretended to be deeply impressed with the illustrations, while her
+cheeks grew hotter and hotter under Arthur's gaze. He knew that he was
+a detestable coward thus to revel in her confusion, when he ought to
+be trying to cover it, but it was such a novel sensation to occupy this
+masterful attitude towards a young lady that he yielded basely to the
+temptation. After all, it was but fair. Had she not caused him a very
+embarrassing quarter of an hour the night before?
+
+“I suppose I shall see you at Miss Oswald's next Thursday,” he said, as
+he rose to take his leave.
+
+She replied that she hoped to be there. She accompanied him to the door
+of the parlor. There was less light there than immediately about
+the table where they had been sitting. “Good-evening,” he said.
+“Good-evening,” she replied; and then, in a lowered voice, hardly above
+a whisper, she added, “I appreciate all that was noble and generous in
+your coming to-night.” He made no reply, but took her hand and, bending
+low, pressed his lips to it as reverently as if she had been a queen.
+
+Now Arthur's motive in making this call upon Maud, which has been
+described, had been entirely unselfish. Furthest from his mind, of all
+ideas, had been any notion of pursuing the conquest of her heart which
+he had inadvertently made. Nevertheless, the effect of his call, and
+that, too, even before it was made,--if this bull may be pardoned,--
+had been to complete that conquest as no other device, however studied,
+could have done.
+
+The previous night Maud had been unable to sleep for shame. Her
+cheeks scorched the pillows faster than her tears could cool them; and
+altogether her estate was so wretched that Lucy Mer-ritt, could she have
+looked in upon her, possibly might have been shaken in her opinion as
+to the qualifications of women to play the part of men in love, even if
+permitted by society.
+
+It had been hard enough to nerve herself to the point of doing what she
+had done in view of the embarrassments she had foreseen. An hour after
+she uttered those fatal words, her whole thinking was summed up in the
+cry, “If I only had not done it, then at least he would still respect
+me.” In the morning she looked like one in a fever. Her eyes were red
+and swollen, her face was pallid but for a hard red spot in each
+cheek, and her whole appearance was expressive of bodily and mental
+prostration. She did not go down to breakfast, pleading a very genuine
+headache, and Arthur's note and the book on pottery were brought up to
+her. She guessed his motive in a moment. Her need gave her the due to
+his meaning.
+
+What was on Arthur's part merely a decent sort of thing to do, her
+passionate gratitude instantly magnified into an act of chivalrous
+generosity, proving him the noblest of men and the gentlest of
+gentlemen. She exaggerated the abjectness of the position from which his
+action had rescued her, in order to feel that she owed the more to his
+nobility. At any time during the previous night she gladly would have
+given ten years of her life to recall the confession that she had made
+to him; now she told herself, with a burst of exultant tears, that she
+would not recall it if she could. She had made no mistake. Her womanly
+dignity was safe in his keeping. Whether he ever returned her love or
+not, she was not ashamed, but was glad, and always should be glad, that
+he knew she loved him.
+
+As for Arthur, the reverence with which he bent over her hand on leaving
+her was as heartfelt as it was graceful. In her very disregard of
+conventional decorum she had impressed him the more strikingly with the
+native delicacy and refinement of her character. It had been reserved
+for her to show him how genuine a thing is womanly modesty, and how far
+from being dependent on those conventional affectations with which it
+is in the vulgar mind so often identified, with the effect of seeming as
+artificial as they.
+
+When, a few evenings later, he went to Miss Oswald's party, the leading
+idea in his mind was that he should meet Maud there. His eyes sought
+her out the moment he entered the Oswald parlors, but it was some time
+before he approached her. For years he had been constantly meeting her,
+but he had never before taken special note of her appearance in company.
+He had a curiosity about her now as lively as it was wholly new. He took
+a great interest in observing how she walked and talked and laughed, how
+she sat down and rose up and demeaned herself. It gave him an odd but
+marked gratification to note how favorably she compared in style and
+appearance with the girls present. Even while he was talking with Ella
+Perry, with whom he believed himself in love, he was so busy making
+these observations that Ella dismissed him with the sarcastic advice to
+follow his eyes, which he presently proceeded to do.
+
+Maud greeted him with a very fair degree of self-possession, though her
+cheeks were delightfully rosy. At first it was evidently difficult
+for her to talk, and her embarrassment betrayed uncertainty as to
+the stability of the conventional footing which his call of the other
+evening had established between them. Gradually, however, the easy,
+nonchalant tone which he affected seemed to give her confidence, and
+she talked more easily. Her color continued to be unusually though not
+unbecomingly high, and it took a great deal of skirmishing for him
+to get a glance from her eyes, but her embarrassment was no longer
+distressing. Arthur, indeed, was scarcely in a mood to notice that she
+did not bear her full part in the conversation. The fact of conversing
+on any terms with a young lady who had confessed to him what Maud
+had was so piquant in itself that it would have made talk in the
+deaf-and-dumb alphabet vivacious. All the while, as they laughed and
+talked together quite as any other two young people might do, those
+words of hers the other night: “I care for you very much,” “Be a little
+good to me,” were ringing in his ears. The reflection that by virtue of
+her confession of love she was his whenever he should wish to claim her,
+even though he never should claim her, was constantly in his mind, and
+gave him a sense of potential proprietorship which was decidedly heady.
+
+“Arthur Burton seems to be quite fascinated. I never supposed that he
+fancied Maud Elliott before, did you?” said one of the young ladies, a
+little maliciously, to Ella Perry. Ella tossed her head and replied that
+really she had never troubled herself about Mr. Burton's fancies, which
+was not true. The fact is, she was completely puzzled as well as vexed
+by Arthur's attentions to Maud. There was not a girl in her set of whom
+she would not sooner have thought as a rival. Arthur had never, to her
+knowledge, talked for five minutes together with Maud before, and here
+he was spending half the evening in an engrossing tête-à-tête with her,
+to the neglect of his other acquaintances and of herself in particular.
+Maud was looking very well, to be sure, but no better than often before,
+when he had not glanced at her a second time. What might be the clue to
+this mystery? She remembered, upon reflection, that he had escorted Maud
+home from the party at her own house the week before, but that explained
+nothing. Ella was aware of no weapon in the armory of her sex capable of
+effecting the subjugation of a previously quite indifferent young man
+in the course of a ten-minutes' walk. If, indeed, such weapons there
+had been, Maud Elliott, the most reserved and diffident girl of her
+acquaintance,--“stiff and pokerish,” Ella called her,---was the last
+person likely to employ them. It must be, Ella was forced to conclude,
+that Arthur was trying to punish her for snubbing him by devoting
+himself to Maud; and, having adopted this conclusion, the misguided
+damsel proceeded to flirt vigorously with a young man whom she detested.
+
+In the latter part of the evening, when Arthur was looking again for
+Maud, he learned that she had gone home, a servant having come to fetch
+her. The result was that he went home alone, Ella Perry having informed
+him rather crushingly that she had accorded the honor of escorting
+herself to another. He was rather vexed at Ella's jilting him, though he
+admitted that she might have fancied she had some excuse.
+
+A few days later he called on her, expecting to patch up their little
+misunderstanding, as on previous occasions. She was rather offish, but
+really would have been glad to make up, had he shown the humility and
+tractableness he usually manifested after their tiffs; but he was not in
+a humble frame of mind, and, after a brief and unsatisfactory call,
+took his leave. The poor girl was completely puzzled. What had come over
+Arthur? She had snubbed him no more than usual that night, and generally
+he took it very meekly. She would have opened her eyes very wide indeed
+if she had guessed what there had been in his recent experience to spoil
+his appetite for humble-pie.
+
+It was not late when he left Ella, and as he passed Maud's house he
+could not resist the temptation of going in. This time he did not
+pretend to himself that he sought her from any but entirely selfish
+motives. He wanted to remove the unpleasantly acid impression left by
+his call on Ella by passing an hour with some one whom he knew would be
+glad to see him and not be afraid to let him know it. In this aim he was
+quite successful. Maud's face fairly glowed with glad surprise when he
+entered the room. This was their second meeting since the evening Arthur
+had called to talk pottery, and the tacit understanding that her tender
+avowal was to be ignored between them had become so well established
+that they could converse quite at their ease. But ignoring is not
+forgetting. On the other hand, it implies a constant remembering; and
+the mutual consciousness between these young people could scarcely fail
+to give a peculiar piquancy to their intercourse.
+
+That evening was the first of many which the young man passed in Maud's
+parlor, and the beginning of an intimacy which caused no end of wonder
+among their acquaintances. Had its real nature been suspected, that
+wonder would have been vastly increased. For whereas they supposed it
+to be an entirely ordinary love affair, except in the abruptness of its
+development, it was, in fact, a quite extraordinary variation on the
+usual social relations of young men and women.
+
+Maud's society had in fact not been long in acquiring an attraction for
+Arthur quite independent of the peculiar circumstances under which he
+had first become interested in her. As soon as she began to feel at
+ease with him, her shyness rapidly disappeared, and he was astonished
+to discover that the stiff, silent girl whom he had thought rather dull
+possessed cultore and originality such as few girls of his acquaintance
+could lay claim to. His assurance beyond possibility of doubt that she
+was as really glad to see him whenever he called as she said she was,
+and that though his speech might be dull or his jests poor they were
+sure of a friendly critic, made the air of her parlor wonderfully genial.
+The result was that he fell into a habit whenever he wanted a little
+social relaxation, but felt too tired, dispirited, or lazy for the
+effort of a call on any of the other girls, of going to Maud. One
+evening he said to her just as he was leaving, “If I come here too much,
+you must send me home.”
+
+“I will when you do,” she replied, with a bright smile.
+
+“But really,” he persisted, “I am afraid I bore you by coming so often.”
+
+“You know better than that,” was her only reply, but the vivid blush
+which accompanied the words was a sufficient enforcement of them; and he
+was, at the bottom of his heart, very glad to think he did know better.
+
+Without making any pretense of being in love with her, he had come to
+depend on her being in love with him. It had grown so pleasing to count
+on her loyalty to him that a change in her feelings would have been
+a disagreeable surprise. Getting something for nothing is a mode of
+acquisition particularly pleasing to mankind, and he was enjoying
+in some respects the position of an engaged man without any of the
+responsibilities.
+
+But if in some respects he was in the position of an engaged man, in
+others he was farther from it than the average unengaged man. For while
+Maud and he talked of almost everything else under heaven, the subject
+of love was tabooed between them. Once for all Maud had said her say on
+that point, and Arthur could say nothing unless he said as much as she
+had said. For the same reason, there was never any approach to flirting
+between them. Any trifling of that sort would have been meaningless
+in an intimacy begun, as theirs had been, at a point beyond where most
+flirtations end.
+
+Not only in this respect, but also in the singular frankness which
+marked their interchange of thought and opinion, was there something in
+their relation savoring of that of brother and sister. It was as if her
+confession of love had swept away by one breath the whole lattice of
+conventional affectations through which young men and women usually talk
+with each other. Once for all she had dropped her guard with him, and
+he could not do less with her. He found himself before long talking more
+freely to her than to any others of his acquaintance, and about more
+serious matters. They talked of their deepest beliefs and convictions,
+and he told her things that he had never told any one before. Why
+should he not tell her his secrets? Had she not told him hers? It was a
+pleasure to reciprocate her confidence if he could not her love. He had
+not supposed it to be possible for a man to become so closely acquainted
+with a young lady not a relative. It came to the point finally that when
+they met in company, the few words that he might chance to exchange with
+her were pitched in a different key from that used with the others, such
+as one drops into when greeting a relative or familiar friend met in a
+throng of strangers.
+
+Of course, all this had not come at once. It was in winter that the
+events took place with which this narrative opened. Winter had meantime
+glided into spring, and spring had become summer. In the early part of
+June a report that Arthur Burton and Maud Elliott were engaged obtained
+circulation, and, owing to the fact that he had so long been apparently
+devoted to her, was generally believed. Whenever Maud went out she met
+congratulations on every side, and had to reply a dozen times a day that
+there was no truth in the story, and smilingly declare that she could
+not imagine how it started. After doing which, she would go home and cry
+all night, for Arthur was not only not engaged to her, but she had come
+to know in her heart that he never would be.
+
+At first, and indeed for a long time, she was so proud of the frank and
+loyal friendship between them, such as she was sure had never before
+existed between unplighted man and maid, that she would have been
+content to wait half her lifetime for him to learn to love her, if only
+she were sure that he would at last. But, after all, it was the hope of
+his love, not his friendship, that had been the motive of her desperate
+venture. As month after month passed, and he showed no symptoms of any
+feeling warmer than esteem, but always in the midst of his cordiality
+was so careful lest he should do or say anything to arouse unfounded
+expectations in her mind, she lost heart and felt that what she had
+hoped was not to be. She said to herself that the very fact that he was
+so much her friend should have warned her that he would never be her
+lover, for it is not often that lovers are made out of friends.
+
+It is always embarrassing for a young lady to have to deny a report of
+her engagement, especially when it is a report she would willingly have
+true; but what made it particularly distressing for Maud that this
+report should have got about was her belief that it would be the means
+of bringing to an end the relations between them. It would undoubtedly
+remind Arthur, by showing how the public interpreted their friendship,
+that his own prospects in other quarters, and he might even think
+justice to her future, demanded the discontinuance of attentions which
+must necessarily be misconstrued by the world. The public had been quite
+right in assuming that it was time for them to be engaged. Such an
+intimacy as theirs between a young man and a young woman, unless it were
+to end in an engagement, had no precedent and belonged to no known
+social category. It was vain, in the long run, to try to live
+differently from other people.
+
+The pangs of an accusing conscience completed her wretchedness at this
+time. The conventional proprieties are a law written on the hearts of
+refined, delicately nurtured girls; and though, in the desperation of
+unreciprocated and jealous love, she had dared to violate them, not the
+less did they now thoroughly revenge themselves. If her revolt against
+custom had resulted happily, it is not indeed likely that she would ever
+have reproached herself very seriously; but now that it had issued
+in failure, her self-confidence was gone and her conscience easily
+convicted her of sin. The outraged Proprieties, with awful spectacles
+and minatory, reproachful gestures, crowded nightly around her bed,
+the Titanic shade of Mrs. Grundy looming above her satellite shams and
+freezing her blood with a Gorgon gaze. The feeling that she had deserved
+all that was to come upon her deprived her of moral support.
+
+Arthur had never showed that he thought cheaply of her, but in his heart
+of hearts how could he help doing so? Compared with the other
+girls, serene and unapproachable in their virgin pride, must she not
+necessarily seem bold, coarse, and common? That he took care never to
+let her see it only proved his kindness of heart. Her sense of this
+kindness was more and more touched with abjectness.
+
+The pity of it was that she had come to love him so much more since she
+had known him so well. It scarcely seemed to her now that she could have
+truly cared for him at all in the old days, and she wondered, as
+she looked back, that the shallow emotion she then experienced had
+emboldened her to do what she had done. Ah, why had she done it? Why had
+she not let him go his way? She might have suffered then, but not such
+heart-breaking misery as was now in store for her.
+
+Some weeks passed with no marked change in their relations, except that
+a new and marked constraint which had come over Arthur's manner towards
+her was additional evidence that the end was at hand. Would he think
+it better to say nothing, but merely come to see her less and less
+frequently and so desert her, without an explanation, which, after all,
+was needless? Or would he tell her how the matter stood and say good-by?
+She thought he would take the latter course, seeing that they had always
+been so frank with each other. She tried to prepare herself for what she
+knew was coming, and to get ready to bear it. The only result was that
+she grew sick with apprehension whenever he did not call, and was only
+at ease when he was with her, in the moment that he was saying good-by
+without having uttered the dreaded words.
+
+The end came during a call which he made on her in the last part of
+June. He appeared preoccupied and moody, and said scarcely anything.
+Several times she caught him furtively regarding her with a very strange
+expression. She tried to talk, but she could not alone keep up the
+conversation, and in time there came a silence. A hideous silence it
+was to Maud, an abyss yawning to swallow up all that was left of her
+happiness. She had no more power to speak, and when he spoke she knew it
+would be to utter the words she had so long expected. Evidently it was
+very hard for him to bring himself to utter them,--almost as hard as
+it would be for her to hear them. He was very tender-hearted she had
+learned already. Even in that moment she was very sorry for him. It was
+all her fault that he had to say this to her.
+
+Suddenly, just as she must have cried out, unable to bear the tension
+of suspense any longer, he rose abruptly to his feet, uttering something
+about going and an engagement which he had almost forgotten. Hastily
+wishing her good-evening, with hurried steps he half crossed the room,
+hesitated, stopped, looked back at her, seemed to waver a moment, and
+then, as if moved by a sudden decision, returned to her and took her
+gently by the hand. Then she knew it was coming.
+
+For a long moment he stood looking at her. She knew just the pitifulness
+that was in his expression, but she could not raise her eyes to his. She
+tried to summon her pride, her dignity, to her support. But she had no
+pride, no dignity, left. She had surrendered them long ago.
+
+“I have something to say to you,” he said, in a tone full of gentleness,
+just as she had known he would speak. “It is something I have put off
+saying as long as possible, and perhaps you have already guessed what it
+is.”
+
+Maud felt the blood leaving her face; the room spun around; she was
+afraid she should faint. It only remained that she should break down now
+to complete her humiliation before him, and apparently she was going to
+do just that.
+
+“We have had a most delightful time the past year,” he went on; “that
+is, at least I have. I don't believe the friendship of a girl was ever
+so much to a man as yours has been to me. I doubt if there ever was just
+such a friendship as ours has been, anyway. I shall always look back on
+it as the rarest and most charming passage in my life. But I have
+seen for some time that we could not go on much longer on the present
+footing, and tonight it has come over me that we can't go on even
+another day. Maud, I can't play at being friends with you one hour more.
+I love you. Do you care for me still? Will you be my wife?”
+
+When it is remembered that up to his last words she had been desperately
+bracing herself against an announcement of a most opposite nature, it
+will not seem strange that for a moment Maud had difficulty in realizing
+just what had happened. She looked at him as if dazed, and with an
+instinct of bewilderment drew back a little as he would have clasped
+her. “I thought,” she stammered--“I thought--I”--
+
+He misconstrued her hesitation. His eyes darkened and his voice was
+sharpened with a sudden fear as he exclaimed, “I know it was a long time
+ago you told me that. Perhaps you don't feel the same way now. Don't
+tell me, Maud, that you don't care for me any longer, now that I have
+learned I can't do without you.”
+
+A look of wondering happiness, scarcely able even yet to believe in its
+own reality, had succeeded the bewildered incredulity in her face.
+
+“O Arthur!” she cried. “Do you really mean it? Are you sure it is not
+out of pity that you say this? Do you love me after all? Would you
+really like me a little to be your wife?”
+
+“If you are not my wife, I shall never have one,” he replied. “You have
+spoiled all other women for me.”
+
+Then she let him take her in his arms, and as his lips touched hers
+for the first time he faintly wondered if it were possible he had ever
+dreamed of any other woman but Maud Elliott as his wife. After she had
+laughed and cried awhile, she said:
+
+“How was it that you never let me see you cared for me? You never showed
+it.”
+
+“I tried not to,” he replied; “and I would not have shown it to-night,
+if I could have helped it. I tried to get away without betraying my
+secret, but I could not.” Then he told her that when he found he had
+fallen in love with her, he was almost angry with himself. He was so
+proud of their friendship that a mere love affair seemed cheap and
+common beside it. Any girl would do to fall in love with; but there was
+not, he was sure, another in America capable of bearing her part in such
+a rare and delicate companionship as theirs. He was determined to keep
+up their noble game of friendship as long as might be.
+
+Afterward, during the evening, he boasted himself to her not a little of
+the self-control he had shown in hiding his passion so long, a feat the
+merit of which perhaps she did not adequately appreciate.
+
+“Many a time in the last month or two when you have been saying good-by
+to me of an evening, with your hand in mine, the temptation has been
+almost more than I could withstand to seize you in my arms. It was all
+the harder, you see, because I fancied you would not be very angry if
+I did. In fact, you once gave me to understand as much in pretty
+plain language, if I remember rightly. Possibly you may recall the
+conversation. You took the leading part in it, I believe.”
+
+Maud had bent her head so low that he could not see her face. It was
+very cruel in him, but he deliberately took her chin in his hands, and
+gently but firmly turned her face up to his. Then, as he kissed the
+shamed eyes and furiously blushing cheeks, he dropped the tone of banter
+and said, with moist eyes, in a voice of solemn tenderness:--
+
+“My brave darling, with all my life I will thank you for the words you
+spoke that night. But for them I might have missed the wife God meant
+for me.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Love Story Reversed, by Edward Bellamy
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