Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/190

180 "Exactly," said Lucia. "So I am not kind, you see," she added in a moment. "I wanted you to tell me something new about myself. Or about you. You said you knew the story of your necklace."

Madge Heron's handsome but rather hard face softened a little and looked extraordinarily young under its beautiful grey hair. She liked Lucia, she was attracted by her, and at the moment she was very sorry for her. Clearly, to her acute eye, Lucia's nature had never been awakened at all; all that she had attained had been won by mere brain-work; she had been a clever child, winning prizes at school. And the awakening to life was, in Madge's opinion, a painful process to most women, if it came after they were out in the world and married, for it was always associated with the thought of what might have been. A choice, too, was then set before them, as to whether they would behave as if they were content, or—grab, steal what was not theirs. She had been through that late awakening herself, and she had chosen. Some day, unless, as now appeared extremely unlikely, Lucia fell in love with her husband, she, too, would have to choose. From the direction and trend of her previous achievements, it was not difficult to guess what her choice would be. Yet it was a pity; and a certain vague regret that stirred in Madge herself tinged what she said.

"My dear, I will preach you a little sermon on bead-strings," she said; "not on my string, nor on yours, but on strings in the abstract."

Lucia's face lit up with that brilliant child-like smile, and she moved her chair a little closer.

"Ah, that will be delightful!" she said. "I shall love to hear a little sermon from you. It is sure to be clear-cut and incisive, like your life."

"I will try to make it clear. Now, dear, with all your success, your—your everything—you don't yet know in the least degree what life is. You haven't even decided, you know, if your string—that is yourself, your character—is to be black or white. You talk charmingly about character: you are full of cleverness and perception; but when you talk about it, it is as if you played—let me see—the appassionata up at the top of the piano. It is tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. It doesn't go down to the depths. And it can't, because you have never been there. All you have done has been done with your brain."

Lucia gave a delighted little sigh.