The Laurel Bush | Page 7

was
so difficult to go on talking like ordinary friends, when she knew, and
he must know she knew, that one more word would make them--not
friends at all--something infinitely better, closer, dearer; but that word
was his to speak, not hers. There are women who will "help a man
on"--propose to him, marry him indeed--while he is under the pleasing
delusion that he does it all himself; but Fortune Williams was not one
of these. She remained silent and passive, waiting for the next thing he
should say. It came: something the shock of which she never forgot as
long as she lived; and he said it with his eyes on her face, so that, if it
killed her, she must keep quiet and composed, as she did.
"You know the boys' lessons end next week. The week after I go--that
is, I have almost decided to go--to India."
"To India!"
"Yes, For which, no doubt, you think me very changeable, having said
so often that I meant to keep to a scholar's life, and be a professor one
day, perhaps, if by any means I could get salt to my porridge. Well,
now I am not satisfied with salt to my porridge; I wish to get rich."
She did not say, "Why?" She thought she had not looked it; but he

answered: "Never mind why. I do wish it, and I will be rich yet, if I can.
Are you very much surprised?"
Surprised she certainly was; but she answered, honestly, "Indeed, you
are the last person I should suspect of being worldly-minded."
"Thank you; that is kind. No, just; merely just. One ought to have faith
in people; I am afraid my own deficiency is want of faith. It takes so
much to make me believe for a moment that any one cares for me."
How hard it was to be silent--harder still to speak! But she did not
speak.
"I can understand that; I have often felt the same. It is the natural
consequence of a very lonely life. If you and I had had fathers and
mothers and brothers and sisters, we might have been different."
"Perhaps so. But about India. For a long time--that is, for many
weeks--I have been casting about in my mind how to change my way of
life, to look out for something that would help me to earn money, and
quickly, but there seemed no chance whatever. Until suddenly one has
opened."
And then he explained how the father of one of one of his pupils,
grateful for certain benefits, which Mr. Roy did not specify, and
noticing certain business qualities in him--"which I suppose I have,
though I didn't know it," added he, with a smile--had offered him a
situation in a merchant's office at Calcutta: a position of great trust and
responsibility, for three years certain, with the option of then giving it
up or continuing it.
"And continuing means making a fortune. Even three years means
making something, with my 'stingy' habits. Only I must go at once. Nor
is there any time left me for my decision; it must be yes or no. Which
shall it be?"
The sudden appeal--made, too, as if though it was nothing--that terrible
yes or no, which to her made all the difference of living or only half

living, of feeling the sun in or out of the world. What could she answer?
What could she answer? Trembling violently, she yet answered, in a
steady voice, "You must decide for yourself. A woman can not
understand a man."
"Nor a man a woman, thoroughly. There is only one thing which helps
both to comprehend one another."
One thing! she knew what it was. Surely so did he. But that strange
distrustfulness of which he had spoken, or the hesitation which the
strongest and bravest men have at times, came between.
"Oh, the little more, and how much it is! Oh, the little less, and what
worlds away!"
If, instead of looking vaguely out upon the sea, he had looked into this
poor girl's face; if, instead of keeping silence, he had only spoken one
word! But he neither looked nor spoke, and the moment passed by. And
there are some moments which people would sometimes give a whole
lifetime to recall and use differently; but in vain.
"My engagement is only for three years," he resumed; "and, if alive, I
mean to come back. Dead or alive, I was going to say, but you would
not care to see my ghost, I presume? I beg your pardon: I ought not to
make a joke of such serious things."
"No, you ought not."
She felt herself almost speechless, that in another minute she might
burst into sobs. He saw it--at least he saw