Neither spoke for some time longer; only his expression changed, and he
looked over at her with a compassionate, amused gravity, as though he meant
to be very patient with her opposition. On her part, she was thinking--Is it
possible that the first use he will make of his new liberty is to forge the
chain of a new slavery? Is this some weak spot now to be fully revealed in
his character? Is this the drain in the bottom of the lake that will in the
end bring its high, clear level down to mud and stagnant shallows and a
swarm of stinging insects? At last she spoke, but with difficulty:"I have
known for a year that you were interested in Amy. You could not have been
here so much without our seeing that. But let me ask you one question: Have
you ever thought that I wished you to marry her?"
"I have always beheld in you an unmasked enemy," he replied, smiling.
"Then I can go on," she said. "But I feel as though never in my life have I
done a thing that is as near being familiar and unwomanly. Nevertheless, for
your sake--for hers--for ours--it is my plain, hard duty to ask you whether
you are sure--even if you should have her consent--that my niece is the
woman you ought to marry." And she lifted to him her clear, calm eyes,
prematurely old in the experience of life.
"I am sure," he answered with the readiness of one who has foreseen the
question.
The negro boy approached with a bucket of cold crystal water, and he drank a
big gourd full of it gratefully.
"You can go and kindle the fire in the kitchen," she said to the negro. "It
is nearly time to be getting supper. I will be in by and by."
"You have been with her so much!" she continued to Gray after another
interval of embarrassment. "And you know, or you ought to know, her
disposition, her tastes, her ways and views of life. Is she the companion
you need now? will always need?"
"I have been much with her," he replied, taking up her words with humorous
gravity. "But I have never studied her as I have studied law. I have never
cross-examined her for a witness, or prosecuted her as an attorney, or
pronounced sentence on her is a judge. I am her advocate--and I am ready to
defend her now--even to you!"
"John!--""I love her--that is all there is of it!"