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
f