I linger a little upon these trivial matters because I shrink from what
must follow. They were scarcely blots upon our happiness; rather they
were motes in the sunshine which had no other cloud. It is true that I
was always somewhat puzzled by a certain manner in Mrs. Gray, which
certainly was from no unfriendliness for me; she could not have been more
affectionate to me, after our engagement, if I had been really her own
son; and it was not until after our common kindness had confirmed itself
upon the new footing that I felt this perplexing qualification on it. I
felt it first one day when I found her alone, and I talked long and
freely to her of Eveleth, and opened to her my whole heart of joy in our
love. At one point she casually asked me how soon we should expect to
return from Altruria after our visit; and at first I did not understand.
“Of course,” she explained, “you will want to see all your old friends,
and so will Eveleth, for they will be her friends, too; but if you want
me to go with you, as you say, you must let me know when I shall see New
York again.”
“Why,” I said, “you will always be with us.”
“Well, then,” she pursued, with a smile, “when shall _you_ come
back?”
“Oh, never!” I answered. “No one ever leaves Altruria, if he can help it,
unless he is sent on a mission.”
She looked a little mystified, and I went on: “Of course, I was not
officially authorized to visit the world outside, but I was permitted to
do so, to satisfy a curiosity the priors thought useful; but I have now
had quite enough of it, and I shall never leave home again.”
“You won't come to live in America?”
“God forbid!” said I, and I am afraid I could not hide the horror that
ran through me at the thought. “And when you once see our happy country,
you could no more be persuaded to return to America than a disembodied
spirit could be persuaded to return to the earth.”
She was silent, and I asked: “But, surely, you understood this, Mrs.
Gray?”
“No,” she said, reluctantly. “Does Eveleth?”
“Why, certainly,” I said. “We have talked it over a hundred times. Hasn't
she--”
“I don't know,” she returned, with a vague trouble in her voice and eyes.
“Perhaps I haven't understood her exactly. Perhaps--but I shall be ready
to do whatever you and she think best. I am an old woman, you know; and,
you know, I was born here, and I should feel the change.”
Her words conveyed to me a delicate reproach; I felt for the first time
that, in my love of my own country, I had not considered her love of
hers. It is said that the Icelanders are homesick when they leave their
world of lava and snow; and I ought to have remembered that an American
might have some such tenderness for his atrocious conditions, if he were
exiled from them forever. I suppose it was the large and wide mind of
Eveleth, with its openness to a knowledge and appreciation of better
things, that had suffered me to forget this. She seemed always so eager
to see Altruria, she imagined it so fully, so lovingly, that I had ceased
to think of her as an alien; she seemed one of us, by birth as well as by
affinity.
Yet now the words of her mother, and the light they threw upon the
situation, gave me pause. I began to ask myself questions I was impatient
to ask Eveleth, so that there should be no longer any shadow of misgiving
in my breast; and yet I found myself dreading to ask them, lest by some
perverse juggle I had mistaken our perfect sympathy for a perfect
understanding.