It was no wonder that with such a well of living water in her heart
she should be glad--merry even, and ready for anything her horse
could do! Flying across a field in the very wildness of pleasure,
her hair streaming behind her, and her pale face glowing, she would
now and then take a jump Forgue declared he could not face in cold
blood: he did not know how far from cold her blood was! He began to
wonder he had been such a fool as neglect her for--well, never
mind!--and to feel something that was like love, and was indeed
admiration. But for the searing brand of his past, he might have
loved her truly--as a man may, without being the most exalted of
mortals; for in love we are beyond our ordinary selves; the deep
thing in us peers up into the human air, and is of God--therefore
cannot live long in the mephitic air of a selfish and low nature,
but sinks again out of sight.
He was not at his ease with Arctura; he was afraid of her. When a
man is conscious of wrong, knows in his history what would draw a
hideous smudge over the portrait he would present to the eyes of her
he would please, he may well be afraid of her. He makes liberal
allowance for himself, but is not sure she will! And before Forgue
lay a social gulf which he could pass only on the narrow plank of
her favour! The more he was with her, the more he admired her, the
more he desired to marry her; the more satisfied he grew with his
own improvement, the more determined he became that for no poor,
unjust scruples would he forgo his happiness.
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