`Dont think of the past now, Maggie: think only of our love. If you can really cling to me with all your heart, every obstacle will be overcome in time - we need only wait. I can live on hope. Look at me, Maggie - tell me again, it is possible for you to love me. Dont look away from me to that cloven tree - it is a bad omen.

`Maggie, said Philip, with surprise, `it is not like you to take playfulness literally. You must have been in St Oggs this morning, and brought away a slight infection of dulness.

Another Love Scene

`No, Philip, said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old childish way. `Im telling you the truth. It is all new and strange to me; but I dont think I could love any one better than I love you. I should like always to live with you - to make you happy. I have always been happy when I have been with you. There is only one thing I will not do for your sake - I will never do anything to wound my father. You must never ask that from me.

`They can you bear to think of me as your lover - Maggie? said Philip, seating himself by her and taking her hand, in the elation of a sudden hope. `Do you love me?

`Maggie, said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in every fresh moment of silence, `I was a fool to say it - forget that Ive said it. I shall be contented, if things can be as they were.

`No, Maggie: I will ask nothing - I will bear everything - Ill wait another year only for a kiss, if you will only give me the first place in your heart.

`No, said Maggie, smiling, `I wont make you wait so long as that. But then, looking serious again, she added, as she rose from her seat,

`Then you would never have the heart to reject one yourself - should you, Maggie? said Philip, flushing a little.

`But suppose, Maggie - suppose it was a man who was not conceited - who felt he had nothing to be conceited about - who had been marked from childhood for a peculiar kind of suffering - and to whom you were the day-star of his life - who loved you, worshipped you, so entirely that he felt it happiness enough forwww.99lib.net him if you would let him see you at rare moments...

`Wouldnt you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Maggie? said Philip, looking up in her face as we look at a first parting in the clouds, that promises us a bright heaven once more.

Philip paused with a pang of dread lest his confession should cut short this very happiness - a pang of the same dread that had kept his love mute through long months. A rush of self-consciousness told him that he was besotted to have said all this. Maggies manner this morning had been as unconstrained and indifferent as ever.

Maggie shook her head. `It has been very sweet, I know - all the talking together, and the books, and the feeling that I had the walk to look forward to when I could tell you the thoughts that had come into my head while I was away from you. But it has made me restless - it has made me think a great deal about the world; and I have impatient thoughts again - I get weary of my home. And that cuts me to the heart afterwards that I should ever have left weary of my father and mother. I think what you call being benumbed was better - better for me - for then my selfish desires were benumbed.

`Not at all, said Maggie, laughing. `The Muses were uncomfortable goddesses, I think - obliged always to carry rolls and musical instruments about with them. If I carried a harp in this climate, you know, I must have a green baize cover for it - and I should be sure to leave it behind me by mistake.

`I think I could hardly love any one better: there is nothing but what I love you for. She paused a little while, and then added, `But it will be better for us not to say any more about it - wont it, dear Philip? You know we couldnt even be friends, if our friendship were discovered. I have never felt that I was right in giving way about seeing you - though it has been so precious to me in some ways - and now the fear comes upon me strongly again that it will lead to evil.

But she was not looking indifferent now. Struck with the unusual emotion 九九藏书in Philips tone she had turned quickly to look at him, and as he went on speaking, a great change came over her face - a flush and slight spasm of the features such as we see in people who hear some news that will require them to readjust their conceptions of the past. She was quite silent, and walking on towards the trunk of a fallen tree, she sat down, as if she had no strength to spare for her muscles. She was trembling.

`Come, Maggie, say one kind word, or else you were better to me at Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss me. Dont you remember? And you promised to kiss me when you met me again. You never kept the promise.

`Well, said Maggie, smiling, `if you meant that for a joke, it was a poor one; but I thought it was a very good reproof. I thought you wanted to remind me that I am vain, and wish every one to admire me most. But it isnt for that, that Im jealous for the dark women - not because Im dark myself. Its because I always care the most about the unhappy people: if the blonde girl was forsaken, I should like her best. I always take the side of the rejected lover in the stories.

Maggie turned rather pale: this direct question seemed not easy to answer. But her eyes met Philips, which were in this moment liquid and beautiful with beseeching love. She spoke with hesitation, yet with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness.

`I dont know, said Maggie, hesitatingly. Then with a bright smile - `I think perhaps I could if he were very conceited. And yet, if he got extremely humiliated afterwards, I should relent.

`Well, perhaps you will avenge the dark women in your own person: - carry away all the love from your cousin Lucy. She is sure to have some handsome young man of St Oggs at her feet now - and you have only to shine upon him - your fair little cousin will be quite quenched in your beams.

`Yes, Philip: I should like never to part: I should like to make your life very happy.

`Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie - and I shall be happier than other men, in spite of all? We do belong to each other - for always - whether we are apart or together?

EARLY in the following April, nearly a year after that dubious parting you have just witnessed, you may, if you like, again see Maggie entering the Red Deeps through the group of Scotch firs. But it is early afternoon and not evening, and the edge of sharpness in the spring air makes her draw her large shawl close about her and trip along rather quickly; though she looks round, as usual, that she may take in the sight of her beloved trees. There is a more eager, inquiring look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is hovering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting the right hearer. The hearer was not long in appearing. `Take back your Corinne, said Maggie, drawing a book from under her shawl. `You were right in telling me she would do me no good. But you were wrong in thinking I should wish to be like her.

Philip had risen again and was walking backwards and forwards impatiently.

She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad smile.

`I didnt finish the book, said Maggie. `As soon as I came to the blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up and determined to read no further. I foresaw that that light complexioned girl would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable. Im determined to read no more books where the blond haired women carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice against them - If you could give me some story, now, where the dark woman triumphs, it would restore the balance - I want to avenge Rebecca and Flora MacIvor, and Minna and all the rest of the dark unhappy ones. Since you are my tutor you ought to preserve my mind from prejudices, you are always arguing against prejudices.

`Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have I ever had so great as being with you? - since I was a little girl - the days Tom was good to me. And your mind is a sort of world to me - You can tell me all I want to know. I think I should never be tired 九九藏书of being with you.

`I am waiting for something else - I wonder whether it will come.

`But what would your own father say, Philip? O, it is quite impossible we can ever be more than friends - brother and sister in secret - as we have been. Let us give up thinking of everything else.

Maggie smiled, with glistening tears, and then stopped her tall head to kiss the low pale face that was full of pleading, timid love - like a womans.

`Has it made you hate me, Maggie? said Philip, impetuously. `Do you think Im a presumptuous fool?

The distress with which he spoke, urged Maggie to say something. `I am so surprised, Philip - I had not thought of it. And the effort to say this brought the tears down too.

She turned away and hurried home, feeling that in the hour since she had trodden this road before, a new era had begun for her. The tissue of vague dreams must now get narrower and narrower, and all the threads of thought and emotion be gradually absorbed in the woof of her actual daily life.

They stopped to part among the Scotch firs.

`Philip, that is not pretty of you, to apply my nonsense to anything real, said Maggie, looking hurt. `As if I, with my old gowns, and want of all accomplishments, could be a rival of dear little Lucy, who knows and does all sorts of charming things, and is ten times prettier than I am - even if I were odious and base enough to wish to be her rival. Besides, I never go to aunt Deanes when any one is there: it is only because dear Lucy is good and loves me that she comes to see me, and will have me go to see her sometimes.

`You dont seem happy enough, Maggie: you are forcing yourself to say you love me, out of pity.

`O Philip! said Maggie, `how can you think I have such feelings - as if I were not grateful for any love. But... but I had never thought of your being my lover. It seemed so far off - like a dream - only like one of the stories one imagines - that I should ever have a lover.

`That would depend on what they didnt like him for, said Maggie, laughing. `He might be very disagreeahttp://www.99lib.netble. He might look at me through an eyeglass stuck in his eye, making a hideous face, as young Torry does. I should think other women are not fond of that; but I never felt any pity for young Torry. Ive never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

`Ive often wondered, Maggie, Philip said, with some effort, `whether you wouldnt really be more likely to love a man that other women were not likely to love.

`No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as Ive often told you. What you call self-conquest - blinding and deafening yourself to all but one train of impressions, is only the culture of monomania in a nature like yours.

They were walking hand in hand, looking at each other - Maggie indeed was hurrying along, for she felt it time to be gone. But the sense that their parting was near, made her more anxious lest she should have unintentionally left some painful impression on Philips mind. It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive - when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.

`No, Maggie, I cant give you up - unless you are deceiving me - unless you really only care for me as if I were your brother. Tell me the truth.

The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief to Maggie. It made the present moment less strange to her. She kissed him almost as simply and quietly as she had done when she was twelve years old. Philips eyes flashed with delight, but his next words were words of discontent.

He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down by her again and took her hand.

`But no evil has come, Maggie - and if you had been guided by that fear before, you would only have lived through another dreary benumbing year, instead of reviving into your real self.

She had a moment of real happiness than - a moment of belief that if there were sacrifice in this love - it was all the richer and more satisfying.

`You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then?