"Yes."
"To cook--and wash for you."
"Yes."
"To mend your clothes for you."
"Yes."
"And you think me--sufficiently competent?"
"Oh, Charmian, I--yes."
Thank you!" said she, very solemnly, and, though her lashes had
drooped, I felt the mockery of her eyes; wherefore I took a
sudden great gulp of tea, and came near choking, while Charmian
began to pleat another fold in the tablecloth.
"And so Mr. Vibart would stoop to wed so humble a person as
Charmian Brown? Mr. Peter Vibart would, actually, marry a woman
of whose past he knows nothing?"
"Yes," said I.
"That, again, would be rather--unwise, wouldn't it?"
"Why?"
"Considering Mr. Vibart's very lofty ideals in regard to women."
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't you once say that your wife's name must be above
suspicion--like Caesar's--or something of the kind?"
"Did I?--yes, perhaps I did--well?"
"Well, this woman--this Humble Person has no name at all, and no
shred of reputation left her. She has compromised herself beyond
all redemption in the eyes of the world."
"But then," said I, "this world and I have always mutually
despised each other."
"She ran away, this woman--eloped with the most notorious, the
most accomplished rake in London."
"Well?"
"Oh!--is not that enough?"
"Enough for what, Charmian?" I saw her busy fingers falter and
tremble, but her voice was steady when she answered: "Enough to make any--wise man think twice before asking this
Humble Person to--to marry him."
"I might think twenty times, and it would be all one!"
"You--mean--?"
"That if Charmian Brown will stoop to marry a village blacksmith,
Peter Vibart will find happiness again; a happiness that is not
of the sunshine--nor the wind in the trees--Lord, what a fool I
was!" Her fingers had stopped altogether now, but she neither
spoke nor raised her head.
"Charmian," said I, leaning nearer across the table, "speak."
"Oh, Peter!" said she, with a sudden break in her voice, and
stooped her head lower. Yet in a little she looked up at me, and
her eyes were very sweet and shining.
Now, as our glances met thus, up from throat to brow there crept
that hot, slow wave of color, and in her face and in her eyes I
seemed to read joy, and fear, and shame, and radiant joy again.
But now she bent her head once more, and strove to pleat another
fold, and could not; while I grew suddenly afraid of her and of
myself, and longed to hurl aside the table that divided us; and
thrust my hands deep into my pockets, and, finding there my
tobacco-pipe, brought it out and fell to turning it aimlessly
over and over. I would have spoken, only I knew that my voice
would tremble, and so I sat mum-chance, staring at my pipe with
unseeing eyes, and with my brain in a ferment. And presently
came her voice, cool and sweet and sane: "Your tobacco, Peter," and she held the box towards me across the
table.