'A young man?'
'A lover I mean--that's what we call 'em down here.'
'It is difficult to explain,' said Ethelberta evasively. 'I knew one
many years ago, and I have seen him again, and--that is all.'
'According to my idea you have one, but according to your own you have
not; he does not love you, but you love him--is that how it is?'
'I have not quite considered how it is.'
'Do you love him?'
'I have never seen a man I hate less.'
'A great deal lies covered up there, I expect!'
'He was in that carriage which drove over the hill at the moment we met
here.'
'Ah-ah--some great lord or another who has his day by candlelight, and so
on. I guess the style. Somebody who no more knows how much bread is a
loaf than I do the price of diamonds and pearls.'
'I am afraid he's only a commoner as yet, and not a very great one
either. But surely you guess, Picotee? But I'll set you an example of
frankness by telling his name. My friend, Mr. Julian, to whom you posted
the book. Such changes as he has seen!--from affluence to poverty. He
and his sister have been playing dances all night at Wyndway--What is the
matter?'
'Only a pain!'
'My dear Picotee--'
'I think I'll sit down for a moment, Berta.'
'What--have you over-walked yourself, dear?'
'Yes--and I got up very early, you see.'
'I hope you are not going to be ill, child. You look as if you ought not
to be here.'
'O, it is quite trifling. Does not getting up in a hurry cause a sense
of faintness sometimes?'
'Yes, in people who are not strong.'
'If we don't talk about being faint it will go off. Faintness is such a
queer thing that to think of it is to have it. Let us talk as we were
talking before--about your young man and other indifferent matters, so as
to divert my thoughts from fainting, dear Berta. I have always thought
the book was to be forwarded to that gentleman because he was a
connection of yours by marriage, and he had asked for it. And so you
have met this--this Mr. Julian, and gone for walks with him in evenings,
I suppose, just as young men and women do who are courting?'
'No, indeed--what an absurd child you are!' said Ethelberta. 'I knew him
once, and he is interesting; a few little things like that make it all
up.'
'The love is all on one side, as with me.'
'O no, no: there is nothing like that. I am not attached to any one,
strictly speaking--though, more strictly speaking, I am not unattached.'
''Tis a delightful middle mind to be in. I know it, for I was like it
once; but I had scarcely been so long enough to know where I was before I
was gone past.'
'You should have commanded yourself, or drawn back entirely; for let me
tell you that at the beginning of caring for a man--just when you are
suspended between thinking and feeling--there is a hair's-breadth of time
at which the question of getting into love or not getting in is a matter
of will--quite a thing of choice. At the same time, drawing back is a
tame dance, and the best of all is to stay balanced awhile.'
'You do that well, I'll warrant.'
'Well, no; for what between continually wanting to love, to escape the
blank lives of those who do not, and wanting not to love, to keep out of
the miseries of those who do, I get foolishly warm and foolishly cold by
turns.'
'Yes--and I am like you as far as the "foolishly" goes. I wish we poor
girls could contrive to bring a little wisdom into our love by way of a
change!'
'That's the very thing that leading minds in town have begun to do, but
there are difficulties. It is easy to love wisely, but the rich man may
not marry you; and it is not very hard to reject wisely, but the poor man
doesn't care. Altogether it is a precious problem. But shall we clamber
out upon those shining blocks of rock, and find some of the little yellow
shells that are in the crevices? I have ten minutes longer, and then I
must go.'