Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/16

6 Maud took the hair-brush out of her hand.

"Oh, let me," she said. "I love to do it for you, Lucia. May I put the candles out and see it sparkle? I am sure it would give flashes to-night."

"Yes, but not now; before going to bed," she said. "I've got a cargo of talk on board, and I must get it landed. And I want a cigarette more than I can possibly say. Oh, it's no use frowning. I know quite well that you wish I wouldn't smoke. But you also know quite well, darling, that I don't mind the least about that."

This was perfectly true, and Maud made no further remonstrance. Indeed, she was incapable of radical disapproval with regard to anything Lucia did, for all her actions came to her through the golden haze, so to speak, of her personality. Maud could no more really judge them than the dazzled eye can judge of colour.

"Yes, cargoes of talk," she said, "all disconnected, all nonsensical, I dare say, but all me. Because if one is really absurd as I am, one is most ridiculous when one is most oneself. Most people are ridiculous, but they won't say so, and talk about politics instead, or something which is possibly not ridiculous. And afterwards you may talk about yourself for a little. Well, the real point is that I'm growing up. I've begun to realize that I am I. I didn't really know it before, and I'm only just beginning to know it now. Maud, I'm a very awful person, really. If anybody else was like me I should be shocked at her. But because it's me, I'm not. I wonder if you'll be shocked."

"Try," said Maud.

"I'm not sure that it's wise. You might get up with a Day of Judgment face in the middle, and stalk out of the room."

Maud was naturally very reserved and reticent, and it was here again that the utter dissimilarity of the two drew them closer together. If Lucia felt a thing deeply, that thing exploded in all directions in floods of talk, while the same fact in Maud's case was sufficient to tie and seal her tongue in a manner almost hermetical. If her nature was moved below its surface, the words by which it would naturally find utterance congealed, so that to the mere superficial observer, who judges only by surface, the more deeply she felt the more wooden and set (to put it inimically) she became. And if she envied Lucia anything (which, indeed, she scarcely did, since her love for her told her