Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/202

192 harm that I loved you; on the contrary, if love were a real and vital power, I should be sending something of good to you continually. It pleased me, too, to think that you could not escape it; consciously or unconsciously you would be receiving the best I had it in me to give. And so for the time being I was content.

"But only for the time. There was still something kept back, a something that belonged to you, and that I had no right to withhold. You can guess what it was—my pride. My pride! it hadn't bothered me much with the others, and perhaps I had forfeited the right to indulge in such a sentiment. But it was you whom I had come to love, and that made a difference—all the difference.

"It was then that I came to resent your being a rich woman, raging against the barriers that fate had raised, and which I had helped to make higher with my own hands. Foolish enough, wasn't it? Remember that I was keeping back part of the price, and so was unhappy.

"But now it is paid—to the uttermost farthing. A man's pride—if he is a man—is himself; it lies at the bottom sometimes, but it's still there. I've brought it here to-night for you to take and put under your feet—if you will. It isn't worth anything in itself; its sacrifice is the only thing that counts. The real love—that which comes but once—strips us of everything, and it won't be satisfied until we are willing that it should do so. It was only to-night that I found myself willing, but now I am glad to have yielded—can you believe it even that I am proud?—that not otherwise—even to wish—" his voice trailed away into inarticulateness.

Once again silence held them both—the true and perfect silence in which alone the soul possesses itself in freedom; the silence of that ultimate moment in the relations of a man and of a woman which must either unite or alienate them forever. Once before this man had seen the prodigy appear, and had fled in terror before it. But now he waited, for, lo! the woman would have it so.

Young Buller was calling on Miss Lansing for the fourth consecutive evening in one week. But there was some sort of excuse for him this time: he had a piece of news to tell—Eve Hasbrouck's engagement to Fulke Jarvis. Miss Lansing heard him through in silence.

"What do you think of it?" asked young Buller, timidly.

Miss Lansing looked out of the window and sighed audibly. "Dear me! 'Bully, she said. "Haven't you learned yet how little it takes to disappoint a woman—and how much less to please her?"

Young Buller fidgeted about on his chair. Certainly he would never be able to do the right thing by this inscrutable and fearfully clever Miss Lansing. She was such a one to catch a fellow up.

Nevertheless, there are those who think that in the end the lady will be inclined to be lenient towards young Buller. It appears that he means well.