“I guessed as much when she met me that day
and said I might let you know where she was.”
“Ha!” exclaimed O’Gree, with a long
breath.
“And so the matter is settled?”
“All but the most important part of it.
There’s no chance of my being able to marry
for long enough to come. Now, can you give me
any advice? I’ve quite made up my mind to
leave Tootle. The position isn’t worthy
of a gentleman; I’m losing my self-respect.
The she-Tootle gets worse and worse. If I don’t
electrify her, one of these days, with an outburst
of ferocious indignation, she will only have my patience
to thank. Let her beware how she drives the lion
to bay!”
“Couldn’t you get a non-resident mastership?”
“I must try, but the pay is so devilish small.”
“We must talk the matter over.”
Waymark had a good deal of frank talk with himself
before meeting Ida again on the Sunday. Such
conversation was, as we know, habitual. Under
the circumstances, however, he felt that it behoved
him to become especially clear on one or two points;
never mind what course he might ultimately pursue,
it was always needful to him to dissect his own motives,
that he might at least be acting with full consciousness.
One thing was clear enough. The fiction of a
mere friendship between himself and Ida was impossible
to support. It had been impossible under the
very different circumstances of a year ago, and was
not likely to last a week, now that Ida could so little
conceal how her own feelings had changed. What,
then, was to be their future? Could he accept
her love, and join their lives without legal bond,
thinking only of present happiness, and content to
let things arrange themselves as they would in the
years to come?
His heart strongly opposed such a step. Clearly
Ida had changed her life for his sake, and was undergoing
hardships in the hope of winning his respect as well
as his love. Would she have done all this without
something of a hope that she might regain her place
in the every-day world, and be held by Waymark worthy
to become his wife? He could not certainly know,
but there was little doubt that this hope had led
her on. Could he believe her capable of yet nobler
ideas; could he think that only in reverence of the
sanctity of love, and without regard to other things,
she had acted in this way; then, regarding her as
indeed his equal, he would open his heart to her and
speak somewhat in this way. “Yes, I do love
you; but at the same time I know too well the uncertainty
of love to go through the pretence of binding myself
to you for ever. Will you accept my love in its
present sincerity, neither hoping nor fearing, knowing
that whatever happens is beyond our own control, feeling
with me that only an ignoble nature can descend to
the affectation of union when the real links are broken?”
Could Waymark but have felt sure of her answer to
such an appeal, it would have gone far to make his
love for Ida all-engrossing. She would then be
his ideal woman, and his devotion to her would have
no bounds.
