Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/917

Rh fight and died. Ed's a Darcy through and through." Gertrude found it easy to believe.

"He told me he had no sympathy at home," she murmured.

Mrs. Darcy smiled her fat smile. "How familiar that sounds! It's in the blood. Uncle, father, grandfather, son, I have heard the same whine. Don't you know that what one is most likely to get in a place is what he brings? If Ed took a little interest at home, he might rouse some: if he ever did anything for anybody, more might be done for him. Not that he's particularly to blame. None of the Darcys get along well together; they all want the same thing, so there's no one to supply it: they've long gotten over coming to me!"

"I can't help thinking," Gertrude hesitated, really distressed at having to hurt any one's feelings, "that there must be something very wrong where any one lacks affection and kindness. Beauty and joy are as primary and imperative virtues as duty and usefulness."

But Mrs. Darcy had evidently eliminated her own feelings in disposing of the Darcys'. "You talk enough like Ed to be the right wife for him."

Gertrude smiled. "You see! Isn't that the point in marriage, Mrs. Darcy,—the right two? I know"—the generosity was obviously only for the person present—"that for people not to suit each other may not prove faults on either side; it's temperamental, like love." She colored at the word before those judicial eyes. "And, you know, antagonism and sympathy do call out different sides of a character."

"Now, child, stop right there and listen to me. Sooner or later inevitably what a man is to others, his family especially, he will be to you. This woman influence and incentive does real good only with a man who would do as much for his own sake, anyway. To be misunderstood may be the penalty of greatness, but it is oftener the sop of egotism. What we really are, people, on the whole, judge pretty fairly and fully. And if eleven men on the jury agree, the chances are that the twelfth is mistaken." The trouble was that Mrs. Darcy made truth sound like herself. "I suppose, though, it never will be any use to talk to young folks about this superstition that love and influence change people. The notion is like a witch's head—cut it off and two come in its place."

"But I'm not thinking of changing him! He has his faults, of course,"—evidently they were very trifling,—"but we love each other." She might have stopped there, and the best and worst of the matter would have been said. Oh, the magic of the plural personal pronoun! "And such sweetness and ideality and humility!" Mrs. Darcy heard the count with non-committal face. "Well as I knew Ned, he's been a revelation even to me since " Through her modesty glowed the light of it. "My dear Mrs. Darcy, I am evidently marrying a man you have never met."

Mrs. Darcy's mouth pursed into a smile at the unconscious patronage. "I notice you have a special name for him," she commented, dryly. She prized herself out of her chair. "I'm about through, I believe. You've behaved very nicely, child. One can see you're a dear girl—more's the pity." The compliment was colorless. "There seems nothing to be said against you except poor taste and bad judgment."

Gertrude stiffened. Any other opposition—to herself personally, to the marriage—she could have forgiven more easily than that. "I might as well tell you," she answered, stoutly, "that Ned's love has given me more self-respect than ever before. I feel rich and popular and competent and successful all at once because he loves me. And I'm proud to be marrying the only man I ever cared for."

Mrs. Darcy didn't seem struck with the relevance of the reply. "Well, no one need be surprised at anything any one, a woman especially, does in connection with love. But I've noticed that one is apt to be most positive when he begins to doubt. So I hope before it's too late you'll reconsider. Please don't imagine, though, that I really expected to convince you, much less make you admit it. Probably this will only make you more set. But at least I have done my duty." That self-complacent air of the fat does some of them injustice. "And I want you to remember that in any circumstances you have one friend in the family."

"I'm sure you mean to be kind, and I appreciate that." Gertrude did not