Georginas Reasons | Page 5

it very bad for you, dearest? Do they make scenes?"
Benyon asked.
"No, of course not. Don't you know us enough to know how we behave?
No scenes,--that would be a relief. However, I never make them myself,
and I never will--that's one comfort for you, for the future, if you want
to know. Father and mother keep very quiet, looking at me as if I were
one of the lost, with hard, screwing eyes, like gimlets. To me they
scarcely say anything, but they talk it all over with each other, and try
and decide what is to be done. It's my belief that father has written to
the people in Washington--what do you call it! the Department--to have
you moved away from Brooklyn,--to have you sent to sea."
"I guess that won't do much good. They want me in Brooklyn, they
don't want me at sea."
"Well, they are capable of going to Europe for a year, on purpose to
take me," Geoigina said.
"How can they take you, if you won't go? And if you should go, what
good would it do, if you were only to find me here when you came
back, just the same as you left me?"
"Oh, well!" said Georgina, with her lovely smile, "of course they think
that absence would cure me of--cure me of--" And she paused, with a
certain natural modesty, not saying exactly of what.

"Cure you of what, darling? Say it, please say it," the young man
murmured, drawing her hand surreptitiously into his arm.
"Of my absurd infatuation!"
"And would it, dearest?"
"Yes, very likely. But I don't mean to try. I sha'n't go to Europe,--not
when I don't want to. But it's better I should see less of you,--even that I
should appear--a little--to give you up."
"A little? What do you call a little?"
Georgina said nothing, for a moment. "Well, that, for instance, you
should n't hold my hand quite so tight!" And she disengaged this
conscious member from the pressure of his arm.
"What good will that do?" Benyon asked,
"It will make them think it 's all over,--that we have agreed to part."
"And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?"
They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was
lumbering slowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her
face to her lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At
last: "Nothing will help us; I don't think we are very happy," she
answered, while her strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about
her beautiful lips.
"I don't understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say
you would marry me!" Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the
dray had passed.
"Oh, yes, I will marry you!" And she moved away, across the street.
That was the manner in which she had said it, and it was very
characteristic of her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished
they were somewhere else,--he hardly knew where the proper place
would be,--so that he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before

they separated that day he had said to her he hoped she remembered
they would be very poor, reminding her how great a change she would
find it She answered that she should n't mind, and presently she said
that if this was all that prevented them the sooner they were married the
better. The next time he saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but
he found, to his surprise, it was now her conviction that she had better
not leave her father's house. The ceremony should take place secretly,
of course; but they would wait awhile to let their union be known.
"What good will it do us, then?" Raymond Benyon asked.
Georgina colored. "Well, if you don't know, I can't tell you!"
Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he could
not see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. When
he asked what special event they were to wait for, and what should give
them the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her
parents would probably forgive her, if they were to discover, not too
abruptly, after six months, that she had taken the great step. Benyon
supposed that she had ceased to care whether they forgave her or not;
but he had already perceived that women are full of inconsistencies. He
had believed her capable of marrying him out of bravado, but the
pleasure of defiance was absent if the marriage was kept to themselves.
Now, too, it appeared that she was not especially anxious to defy,--she
was disposed rather to