George felt that his heart was beating faster as he prepared to hear what Totty had to say. He knew that the moment had come for making a decision of some sort, and he was annoyed that it should be thrust upon him, especially by Totty Trimm. He could not be sure of what she was about to say, but he supposed that it was her intention to deliver him a lecture upon his conduct towards Mamie, and to request him to make it clear to the girl, either by words or by an immediate departure, that he could never love her and much less marry her, considering his relatively impecunious position. It struck him that many women would have spoken in a more severe tone of voice than his cousin used, but this he attributed to her native good humour as much as to her tact. He drew his chair nearer to hers, nearer than it had been to Mamie’s, and prepared to listen.

“George, dear boy,” said Totty, “this is a very delicate matter. I really hardly know how to begin, unless you will help me.” A little laugh, half shy, half affectionate, rippled pleasantly in the dusky air. Totty meant to show from the first that she was not angry.

“About Mamie?” George suggested.

“Yes,” Totty answered with a quick change to the intonation of sadness. “About Mamie. I am very much troubled about her. Poor child! She is so unhappy—you do not know.”

“I am sincerely sorry,” said George gravely. “I am very fond of her.”

“Yes, I know you are. If things had not been precisely 308as they are——” She paused as though asking his help.

“You would have been glad of it. I understand.” George thought that she was referring to his want of fortune, as she meant that he should think. She wanted to depress him a little, in order to surprise him the more afterwards.

“No, George dear. You do not understand. I mean that if you loved her, instead of being merely fond of her, it would be easier to speak of it.”

“To tell me to go away?” he asked, in some perplexity.

“No indeed! Do you think I am such a bad friend as that? You must not be so unkind. Do you think I would have begged you so hard to come and stay all summer with us, that I would have left you so often together——”

“You cannot mean that you wish me to marry her!” George exclaimed in great astonishment.

“It would make me very happy,” said Totty gently.

“I am amazed!” exclaimed George. “I do not know what to say—it seems so strange!”

“Does it? It seems so natural to me. Mamie is always first in my mind—whatever can contribute to her happiness in any way—and especially in such a way as this——”

“And she?” George asked.

“She loves you, George—with all her heart.” Totty touched his hand softly. “And she could not love a man whom we should be more glad to see her marry,” she added, putting into her voice all the friendly tenderness she could command.

George let his head sink on his breast. Totty held his hand a moment longer, gave it an infinitesimal squeeze and then withdrew her own, sinking back into her chair with a little sigh as though she had unburdened her heart. For some seconds neither spoke again.

“Cousin Totty,” George said at last, “I believe you 309are the best friend I have in the world. I can never thank you for all your disinterested kindness.”

Totty smiled sweetly in the dark, partly at the words he used and partly at the hopes she founded upon them.

“It would be strange if I were not,” she said. “I have many reasons for not being your enemy, at all events. I have thought a great deal about you during the last year. Will you let me speak quite frankly?”

“You have every right to say what you think,” George answered gratefully. “You have taken me in when I was in need of all the friendship and kindness you have given me. You have made me a home, you have given me back the power to work, which seemed gone, you have——”

“No, no, George, do not talk of such wretched things. There are hundreds of people who would be only too proud and delighted to have George Winton Wood spend a summer with them—yes, or marry their daughters. You do not seem to realise that—a man of your character, of your rising reputation—not to say celebrity—a man of your qualities is a match for any girl. But that is not what I meant to say. It is something much harder to express, something about which I have never talked to you, and never thought I should. Will you forgive me, if I speak now? It is about Constance Fearing.”

George looked up quickly.

“Provided you say nothing unkind or unjust about her,” he answered without hesitation.

“I?” ejaculated Totty in surprise. “Am I not so fond of her, that I wanted you to marry her? I cannot say more, I am sure. Constance is a noble-hearted girl, a little too sensitive perhaps, but good beyond expression. Yes, she is good. That is just the word. Scrupulous to a degree! She has the most finely balanced conscience I have ever known. Dr. Drinkwater—you know, our dear rector in New York—says that there is no one who does more for the poor, or who takes a greater interest in the church, and that she consults him upon everything, 310upon every point of duty in her life—it is splendid, you know. I never knew such a girl—and then, so clever! A Lady Bountiful and a Countess Matilda in one! Only—no, I am not going to say anything against her, because there is simply nothing to be said—only I really do not believe that she is the wife for you, dear boy. I do not pretend to say why. There is some reason, some subtle, undefinable reason why you would not suit each other. I do not mean to say that she is vacillating or irresolute. On the contrary, her sensitive conscience is one of the great beauties of her character. But I have always noticed that people who are long in deciding anything irritate you. Is it not true? Of course I cannot understand you, George, but I sometimes feel what you think, almost as soon as you. That is not exactly what I mean, but you understand. That is one reason. There are others, no doubt. Do you know what I think? I believe that Constance Fearing ought to marry one of those splendid young clergymen one hears about, who devote their lives to doing good, and to the poor—and that kind of thing.”

“I daresay,” said George, as Totty paused. The idea was new to him, but somehow it seemed very just. “At all events,” he added, “she ought to marry a better man than I am.”

“Not better—as good in a different way,” suggested Totty. “An especially good man, rather than an especially clever one.”

“I am not especially clever,” George answered. “I have worked harder than most men and have succeeded sooner. That is all.”

“Of course it is your duty to be modest about yourself. We all have our opinions. Some people call that greatness—never mind. The principle is the same. Tell me—you admire her, and all that, but you do not honestly believe that you and she are suited to each other, do you?”

Totty managed her voice so well that she made the 311question seem natural, and not at all offensive. George considered his reply for a moment before he spoke.

“I think you are right,” he said. “We are not suited to each other.”

Totty breathed more freely, for the moment had been a critical one.

“I was sure of it, though I used to wish it had been otherwise. I used to hope that you would marry her, until I knew you both better—until I saw there was somebody else who was—well—in short, who loves you better. You do not mind my saying it.”

“I am sorry if it is true——”

“Why should you be sorry? Could anything be more natural? I should think that a man would be very glad and very happy to find that he is dearly loved by a thoroughly nice girl——”

“Yes, if——”

“No! I know what you are going to say. If he loves her. My dear George, it is of no use to deny it. You do love Mamie. Any one can see it, though she would die rather than have me think that she believed it. I do not say it is a romantic passion and all that. It is not. You have outgrown that kind of thing, and you are far too sensible, besides. But I do say that you are devotedly attached to her, that you seek her society, that you show how much you like to be alone with her—a thousand things, that we can all see.”

“All” referred to Totty herself, of course, but George was too much disturbed to notice the fact. He could find nothing to say and Totty continued.

“Not that I blame you in the least. I ought to blame myself for bringing you together. I should if I were not so sure that it is the best thing for your happiness as well as for Mamie’s. You two are made for each other, positively made for each other. Mamie is not beautiful, of course—if she were I would not give you a catalogue of her advantages. She is not rich——”

“You forget that I have only my profession,” said George, rather sharply.

312“But what a profession—besides if it came to that, we should always wish our daughter to live as she has been accustomed to live. That is not the question. She is not beautiful and she is not rich, but you cannot deny it, George, she has a charm of her own, a grace, a something that a man will never be tired of because he can never find out just what it is, nor just where it lies. That is quite true, is it not?”

“Dear cousin Totty, I deny nothing——”

“No, of course not! You cannot deny that, at least—and then, do you know? You have the very same thing yourself, the something undefinable that a woman likes. Has no one ever told you that?”

“No indeed!” exclaimed George, laughing a little in spite of himself.

“I am quite serious,” said Totty. “Mamie and you are made for each other. There can be no doubt about it, any more than there can be about your loving each other, each in your own way.”

“If it were in the same way——”

“It is not so different. I was thinking of it only the other day. Suppose that several people were in danger at once—in that dreadful river, for instance—you would save her first.”

George glanced sharply at his cousin. The same idea had crossed his own mind.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“Is it not true?”

“Yes—I suppose it is. But I cannot imagine how you guessed——”

“Do you think I am blind?” asked Totty, almost indignantly. “Do you think Mamie does not know it as well as I do? After all these months of devotion! You must think me very dull—the only wonder is that you should not yet have told her so.”

George wondered why she took it for granted that he had not.

“What I should have to tell her would be very hard to say, as it ought to be said,” he answered thoughtfully.

313Totty’s manner changed again and she turned her head towards him, lowering her voice and speaking in a tone of sincere sympathy.

“Oh, I know how hard it must be!” she said. “Most of all for you. To say, ‘I love you,’ and then to add, ‘I do not love you in the same way as I once loved another.’ But then, must one add that? Is it not self-evident? Ah no! There is no love like the first, indeed there is not!”

Totty sighed deeply, as though the recollection of some long buried fondness were still dear, and sweet and painful.

“And yet, one does love,” she continued a little more cheerfully. “One loves again, often more truly, if one knew it, and more sincerely than the first time. It is better so—the affection of later years is happier and brighter and more lasting than that other. And it is love, in the best sense of the word, believe me it is.”

If there had been the least false note of insincerity in her voice, George would have detected it. But what Totty attempted to do, she did well, with a consummate appreciation of details and their value which would have deceived a keener man than he. Moreover, he himself was in great doubt. He was really so strongly attracted by Mamie as to know that a feather’s weight would turn the scale. But for the recollection of Constance he would have loved her long ago with a love in which there might have been more of real passion and less of illusion. Mamie was in many ways a more real personage in his appreciation than Constance. Totty had defined the difference between the two very cleverly by what she had said. The more he thought of it, the more ideal Constance seemed to become.

But there was another element at work in his judgment. He was obliged to confess that Totty was right in another of her facts. During the long months of the summer he had undoubtedly acted in a way to make ordinary people believe that he loved Mamie. He had 314more than once shown that he resented Totty’s presence, and Totty had taken the hint and had gone away, with a readiness he only understood now. He had been very much spoiled by her, but had never supposed that she desired the marriage. It had been enough for him to show that he wished to talk to Mamie without interruption and he had been immediately humoured as he was humoured in everything in that charming establishment. Totty, however, and, of course, poor Mamie herself, had put an especial construction upon all his slightest words and gestures. To use the language of the world, he had compromised the girl, and had made her believe that he was to some extent in love with her, which was infinitely worse. It was very kind of Totty to be so tactful and diplomatic. Honest Sherry Trimm would have asked him his intentions in two words and would have required an answer in one, a mode of procedure which would have been far less agreeable.

“You owe her something, George,” Totty said after a long pause. “She saved your life. You must not break her heart—it would............