Olive said nothing for a moment; then she replied: "Don't think _I_ can
forget that. If I suggest a deviation, it's only because it sometimes
seems to me that perhaps, after all, almost anything is better than the
form reality _may_ take with us." This was slightly obscure, as well as
very melancholy, and Verena was relieved when her companion remarked, in
a moment, "You must think me strangely inconsequent"; for this gave her
a chance to reply, soothingly:
"Why, you don't suppose I expect you to keep always screwed up! I will
stay a week with Mrs. Burrage, or a fortnight, or a month, or anything
you like," she pursued; "anything it may seem to you best to tell her
after you have seen her."
"Do you leave it all to me? You don't give me much help," Olive said.
"Help to what?"
"Help to help _you_."
"I don't want any help; I am quite strong enough!" Verena cried gaily.
The next moment she inquired, in an appeal half comical, half touching,
"My dear colleague, why do you make me say such conceited things?"
"And if you do stay--just even to-morrow--shall you be--very much of the
time--with Mr. Ransom?"
As Verena for the moment appeared ironically-minded, she might have
found a fresh subject for hilarity in the tremulous, tentative tone in
which Olive made this inquiry. But it had not that effect; it produced
the first manifestation of impatience--the first, literally, and the
first note of reproach--that had occurred in the course of their
remarkable intimacy. The colour rose to Verena's cheek, and her eye for
an instant looked moist.
"I don't know what you always think, Olive, nor why you don't seem able
to trust me. You didn't, from the first, with gentlemen. Perhaps you
were right then--I don't say; but surely it is very different now. I
don't think I ought to be suspected so much. Why have you a manner as if
I had to be watched, as if I wanted to run away with every man that
speaks to me? I should think I had proved how little I care. I thought
you had discovered by this time that I am serious; that I have dedicated
my life; that there is something unspeakably dear to me. But you begin
again, every time--you don't do me justice. I must take everything that
comes. I mustn't be afraid. I thought we had agreed that we were to do
our work in the midst of the world, facing everything, keeping straight
on, always taking hold. And now that it all opens out so magnificently,
and victory is really sitting on our banners, it is strange of you to
doubt of me, to suppose I am not more wedded to all our old dreams than
ever. I told you the first time I saw you that I could renounce, and
knowing better to-day, perhaps, what that means, I am ready to say it
again. That I can, that I will! Why, Olive Chancellor," Verena cried,
panting, a moment, with her eloquence, and with the rush of a
culminating idea, "haven't you discovered by this time that I _have_
renounced?"
The habit of public speaking, the training, the practice, in which she
had been immersed, enabled Verena to unroll a coil of propositions
dedicated even to a private interest with the most touching, most
cumulative effect. Olive was completely aware of this, and she stilled
herself, while the girl uttered one soft, pleading sentence after
another, into the same rapt attention she was in the habit of sending up
from the benches of an auditorium. She looked at Verena fixedly, felt
that she was stirred to her depths, that she was exquisitely passionate
and sincere, that she was a quivering, spotless, consecrated maiden,
that she really had renounced, that they were both safe, and that her
own injustice and indelicacy had been great. She came to her slowly,
took her in her arms and held her long--giving her a silent kiss. From
which Verena knew that she believed her.