The Choir Invisible [56]
explanation had passed?"
"No," she replied. "As long as I did not give any reason, you ought not to have asked for one; but when I wished to give it, you should have been ready to hear it." He drew himself up quickly.
"This is a poor pitiful misunderstanding. I say, forgive me! We will let it pass. I had thought each of us was wrong--you first, I, afterward." "I was not wrong either first or last!"
"Think so if you must! Only, try to understand me! Amy, you know I've loved you. You could never have acted toward me as you have, if you had not believed that. And that night--the night you would not see me alone--I went to ask you to marry me. I meant to ask you the next night. I am here to ask you now! . . ."
He told her of the necessity that had kept him from speaking sooner, of the recent change which made it possible. He explained how he had waited and planned and had shaped his whole life with the thought that she would share it. She had listened with greater interest especially to what he had said about the improvement in his fortunes. Her head had dropped slightly forward as though she were thinking that after all perhaps she had made a mistake. But she now lifted it with deliberateness:
"And what right had you to be so sure all this time that I would marry you whenever you asked me? What right had you to take it for granted that whenever you were ready, I would be?"
The hot flush of shame dyed his face that she could deal herself such a wound and not even know it.
He drew himself up again, sparing her:
"I loved you. I could not love without hoping. I could not hope without planning. Hoping, planning, striving,--everything!--it was all because I loved you!" And then he waited, looking down on her in silence.
She began to grow nervous. She had stooped to pick up the thread of flax and was passing it slowly between her fingers. When he spoke again, his voice showed that he shook like a man with a chill: "I have said all I can say. I have offered all I have to offer. I am waiting."
Still the silence lasted for the new awe of him that began to fall upon her. In ways she could not fathom she was beginning to feel that a change had come over him during these weeks of their separation. He used more gentleness with her: his voice, his manner, his whole bearing, had finer courtesy; he had strangely ascended to some higher level of character, and he spoke to her from this distance with a sadness that touched her indefinably--with a larger manliness that had its quick effect. She covertly lifted her eyes and beheld on his face a proud passion of beauty and of pain beyond anything that she had ever thought possible to him or to any man. She quickly dropped her head again; she shifted her position; a band seemed to tighten around her throat; until, in a voice hardly to be heard, she murmured falteringly:
"I have promised to marry Joseph."
He did not speak or move, but continued to stand leaning against the lintel of the doorway, looking down on her. The colour was fading from the west leaving it ashen white. And so standing in the dying radiance, he saw the long bright day of his young hope come to its close; he drained to its dregs his cup of bitterness she had prepared for him; learned his first lesson in the victory of little things over the larger purposes of life, over the nobler planning; bit the dust of the heart's first defeat and tragedy.
She had caught up the iron shears in her nervousness and begun to cut the flaxen thread; and in the silence of the room only the rusty click was now heard as she clipped it, clipped it, clipped it.
Then such a greater trembling seized her that she laid the shears back upon the table. Still he did not move or speak, and there seemed to fall upon her conscience--in insupportable burden until, as if by no will of her own, she spoke again pitifully:
"I didn't know that you cared so much for me. It isn't my fault. You had never asked me, and he had already asked me twice." He changed his position quickly so that the last light coming in through the
"No," she replied. "As long as I did not give any reason, you ought not to have asked for one; but when I wished to give it, you should have been ready to hear it." He drew himself up quickly.
"This is a poor pitiful misunderstanding. I say, forgive me! We will let it pass. I had thought each of us was wrong--you first, I, afterward." "I was not wrong either first or last!"
"Think so if you must! Only, try to understand me! Amy, you know I've loved you. You could never have acted toward me as you have, if you had not believed that. And that night--the night you would not see me alone--I went to ask you to marry me. I meant to ask you the next night. I am here to ask you now! . . ."
He told her of the necessity that had kept him from speaking sooner, of the recent change which made it possible. He explained how he had waited and planned and had shaped his whole life with the thought that she would share it. She had listened with greater interest especially to what he had said about the improvement in his fortunes. Her head had dropped slightly forward as though she were thinking that after all perhaps she had made a mistake. But she now lifted it with deliberateness:
"And what right had you to be so sure all this time that I would marry you whenever you asked me? What right had you to take it for granted that whenever you were ready, I would be?"
The hot flush of shame dyed his face that she could deal herself such a wound and not even know it.
He drew himself up again, sparing her:
"I loved you. I could not love without hoping. I could not hope without planning. Hoping, planning, striving,--everything!--it was all because I loved you!" And then he waited, looking down on her in silence.
She began to grow nervous. She had stooped to pick up the thread of flax and was passing it slowly between her fingers. When he spoke again, his voice showed that he shook like a man with a chill: "I have said all I can say. I have offered all I have to offer. I am waiting."
Still the silence lasted for the new awe of him that began to fall upon her. In ways she could not fathom she was beginning to feel that a change had come over him during these weeks of their separation. He used more gentleness with her: his voice, his manner, his whole bearing, had finer courtesy; he had strangely ascended to some higher level of character, and he spoke to her from this distance with a sadness that touched her indefinably--with a larger manliness that had its quick effect. She covertly lifted her eyes and beheld on his face a proud passion of beauty and of pain beyond anything that she had ever thought possible to him or to any man. She quickly dropped her head again; she shifted her position; a band seemed to tighten around her throat; until, in a voice hardly to be heard, she murmured falteringly:
"I have promised to marry Joseph."
He did not speak or move, but continued to stand leaning against the lintel of the doorway, looking down on her. The colour was fading from the west leaving it ashen white. And so standing in the dying radiance, he saw the long bright day of his young hope come to its close; he drained to its dregs his cup of bitterness she had prepared for him; learned his first lesson in the victory of little things over the larger purposes of life, over the nobler planning; bit the dust of the heart's first defeat and tragedy.
She had caught up the iron shears in her nervousness and begun to cut the flaxen thread; and in the silence of the room only the rusty click was now heard as she clipped it, clipped it, clipped it.
Then such a greater trembling seized her that she laid the shears back upon the table. Still he did not move or speak, and there seemed to fall upon her conscience--in insupportable burden until, as if by no will of her own, she spoke again pitifully:
"I didn't know that you cared so much for me. It isn't my fault. You had never asked me, and he had already asked me twice." He changed his position quickly so that the last light coming in through the