Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/21

Rh felt checked, as if some quiet steady force had a hand on her rein, and she instinctively felt the reasonableness of the firm and solid touch.

"Explain then," she said.

"Well, come and sit quietly again, where you sat before," said Maud. "It is no use explaining to a hurricane."

"Hurricane? Me?" asked Lucia.

"Yes, hurricane. But you know I am so bad at explaining; I feel, but I can't tell you what, even when you are patient, which you so seldom are. Whereas you can explain a thing without particularly feeling it. I agree with your Aunt Cathie, wasn't it? You say more than you mean."

"I am always patient," said Lucia with emphasis. " But do get on."

"Well, then, I think you have been talking nonsense, and rather dangerous nonsense," said Maud. "I mean it is nonsense that might become sense to you. You tell me, as you have been telling yourself, that you are not nice inside, that you want only the cushions and pillows of life, that you are willing to let a kind old man be kind to you. Oh, Lucia, thank God it is nonsense!"

Maud spoke very slowly, and her utterance was as unlike Lucia's as it is possible to imagine two products of vocal chords to be. Lucia's words flashed and twinkled with the speed and movement of her own mind, her own gestures; Maud's were slow and spaced, and each word seemed to mean what it was supposed to mean by makers of dictionaries. When she said thank God, for instance, it was perfectly clear that she meant "thank God," but when the same phrase was on Lucia's lips, it meant "I am happy to tell you," neither more nor less. And something of the consciousness of this flashed out in her reply.

"Go on, dear aunt," she said.

Maud did not seem to resent this in the least, indeed, at heart she rather liked it.

"Yes, your aunt will go on," she said, "in fact, she fully means to. Dear niece, you think you have found yourself, that you are conscious of your individuality. You aren't in the least. All you have said is quite characteristic of all you have been as long as I have known you"

"That may be," said Lucia quickly; "the point is that I am aware of it."

"Well, I'm not," said Maud slowly. "When you tell me