Gussy Harwood awoke next morning with a sense of exhilaration in her mind, as if, during the night, some burden had rolled off her shoulders. Had any burden been rolled off? The first sensation in the morning of pain or pleasure is not always a true one, but there is none so poignant or which leaves so much impression on the mind. A year—she said to herself—what was a year? If it were two years, what would it matter so long as all doubts were removed and she was assured that as she thought of him so he thought of her? How much better would it have been, in that point of view, if he had opened his heart to her at once!—not waiting for business or wealth or the means of setting up a{176} house which he could ask her to share. All these were secondary matters. The thing she desired to know was his heart and what was in it. If he really loved her, as she sometimes believed he did, yet sometimes doubted, how happy it would be to watch the growth of the practice, the coming of the time when prudence and good sense would permit them to set up a new household together!
Gussy did not desire in the least to forestall that moment, to reject the guidance of prudence. Far from that. Her own actions were always regulated by that rule. All that she wanted was the full understanding, the power to believe that she knew his heart as he knew hers. But she said to herself, with a sigh,
“Men do not understand this. They think it not honorable to engage a woman before they are able to carry their engagement out, not knowing, not guessing, how very different is the woman’s view—how that what she wants is the understanding, the link between heart and heart, the privilege of sharing their thoughts and being bound to them.”
She sighed, and there was impatience and weariness in her sigh. How was it that they would not understand—that he would not understand? She would wait for him for years if it were necessary, so long as there was no doubt left upon the mutual sentiment, so long as the bond was made which he thought it more honorable not to make till it could be quickly fulfilled.
And this feeling went on growing stronger every hour of the day. The first exhilaration departed, and the weariness came back. A year! And who could tell that in a year there might not be some new drawback, some further suspense necessary. If men would but understand that it is not to be married that the woman wants, but to know the lover’s heart, to be assured of his love!
When Molière made his Précieuses contemn the vulgar haste with which their suitors would have jumped to the last accomplished fact of marriage, he had (perhaps) touched a secret of the feminine heart which few men divine.
Gussy, who was not poetical, still less précieuse, who was indeed a very matter-of-fact and most sensible person, would have been like the foolish Cathon and Madelon, quite pleased with the pays du tendre, so long as her lover had led her with a faithful hand into that enchanted country. She did not insist upon the new establishment, the immediate conclusion. She only wanted him to say frankly half-a-dozen words, and so to bind them together forever. It was half an injury to her{177} that he should feel it necessary to wait for such a practical reason. Did he think that her love was a less thing than her word, and that so long as she had not audibly pledged that, she was free? Did he think himself free because he had not said to her, “Be my wife!”
These questions flitted through Gussy’s mind, drifting across the sky like clouds, throughout the day. She shook her head at the vanity and shortsightedness of the thought. She free, when she loved him! Would a mere promise bind her more than the devotion of her whole being? And then there came a cold shiver over Gussy’s heart. Did he think perhaps that he was free so long as he had made no promise—that all the silent fascination which bound them together and the link that had been growing for years, and which he had woven by so many tender words and looks and fond regards, was nothing, so long as no pledge had been given or received?
Gussy would not allow herself to think this. She shook her head over the defects in men, the absence of a finer feeling, the want of that intuition which everybody said women possessed in a higher degree. He could not see that there was a more delicate honor in avowal than in silence. It was strange, but she was obliged to conclude that this was how men felt, and that they did not understand.
Gussy was also a little cast down, ashamed, almost humbled, by the thought that he was in no such doubt of her sentiments as she was of his. But, then, she asked herself—for such a problem awakens metaphysical tendencies in the most simple mind—whether perhaps her doubt of him was not as much the weakness of the woman’s point of view as his reticence was of the man’s? Perhaps it had never entered into his mind that she could doubt him after all that had come and gone. Perhaps he felt the bond between them to be so assured and true that no declaration could make it stronger. Perhaps, just as he did not understand her, she did not understand him, and exemplified the woman’s deficiency just as he exemplified the man’s. This thought sufficed to clear Gussy’s brow for the whole afternoon.
She told her mother, who was very eager for news, and had also expected much from the dance, that Charley had been talking about his profession, and that he was now really getting on, and felt, he believed, the ball at his feet.
“He thinks that in another year or so he will be able to think of a house of his own,” said Gussy.
“Oh!” said Mrs. Harwood, with somewhat blank looks, “in a year or so!{178}”
“Yes, mamma; did you expect him to jump to the heights of his profession in a moment? A silk gown in six months and the woolsack perhaps in——”
Gussy broke off with a laugh. She had replied to her mother with a look equally blank, incapable of understanding (as it seemed) what could be looked for more.
“I am not so silly as that,” said the mother. “I know it is very slow work getting on at the Bar. Still, I thought——”
“What did you think?” asked Gussy, with a certain scorn in the corners of her mouth.
“My dear, if you take that tone I shall say nothing more. I had thought nothing that was not quite reasonable, whatever you may think; but I shall say no more about it. You young people have your own ways of managing matters. I don’t think much of them, but that, I suppose, is because I am old-fashioned and can’t understand anything so superfine as your modes of action. You are a great deal too superior for me.”
“I notice,” said Gussy, “that whenever people are arguing, and don’t know what to say, they call those who think differently superfine and superior. It is as good an argument as another, I suppose.”
Thus Gussy punished her mother for putting into words the troubled intuition of her own heart. It was enough, however, to put a stop to the discussion, which was what she desired most. Mrs. Harwood was so much moved that, wanting an outlet somewhere, she was driven to confiding in Janet, who came down to the drawing-room earlier than usual. Gussy had gone out somewhere to tea.
“I don’t seem to understand the simplest questions nowadays,” she said, fretfully; “they all think me so old-fashioned that I am not worth considering. Do you think it an honorable thing, Janet, or right, or wise for a man to flutter for years about a girl, always coming after her, never letting her alone, so that everybody has remarked it, and yet never saying a word that could compromise him, though he has quite compromised her? Do you think there is any sense in which that could be called right?”
“No,” said Janet, in a very low tone, smitten by sudden compunction.
She had her back to Mrs. Harwood, pouring out the tea.
“What do you say? Oh, I suppose you a............