given her was very dear to her, and she
was at no pains to hide her liking; but of the man as a lover she had
never seemed to think.
Nor did she think of him as a lover. It is not by such thinking that
love grows. Nor did she ever tell herself that while he was there,
coming on one day and telling them that his boat would be again there on
another, life was blessed to her, and that, therefore, when he should
have left them, her life would be accursed to her. She knew nothing of
all this. But yet she thought of him, and dreamed of him, and her young
head was full of little plans with every one of which he was connected.
And it may almost be said that Fred Neville was as innocent in the
matter as was the girl. It is true, indeed, that men are merciless as
wolves to women,--that they become so, taught by circumstances and
trained by years; but the young man who begins by meaning to be a wolf
must be bad indeed. Fred Neville had no such meaning. On his behalf it
must be acknowledged that he had no meaning whatever when he came again
and again to Ardkill. Had he examined himself in the matter he would
have declared that he liked the mother quite as well as the daughter.
When Lady Mary Quin had thrown at him her very blunt arrow he had
defended himself on that plea. Accident, and the spirit of adventure,
had thrust these ladies in his path, and no doubt he liked them the
better because they did not live as other people lived. Their solitude,
the close vicinity of the ocean, the feeling that in meeting them none
of the ordinary conventional usages of society were needed, the wildness
and the strangeness of the scene, all had charms which he admitted to
himself. And he knew that the girl was very lovely. Of course he said
so to himself and to others. To take delight in beauty is assumed to be
the nature of a young man, and this young man was not one to wish to
differ from others in that respect. But when he went back to spend his
Christmas at Scroope, he had never told even himself that he intended to
be her lover.
"Good-bye, Mrs. O'Hara," he said, a day or two before he left Ennis.
"So you're going?"
"Oh yes, I'm off. The orders from home are imperative. One has to cut
one's lump of Christmas beef and also one's lump of Christmas pudding.
It is our family religion, you know."
"What a happiness to have a family to visit!"
"It's all very well, I suppose. I don't grumble. Only it's a bore going
away, somehow."
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