"Well, sir"--Mr. Brand began; "well, sir"--
"I was sure you did n't know it," Felix continued. "But don't you see--as soon as I mention it--how everything is explained?"
Mr. Brand answered nothing; he looked for a chair and softly sat down.
Felix could see that he was blushing; he had looked straight at his host hitherto, but now he looked away. The foremost effect of what he had heard had been a sort of irritation of his modesty.
"Of course," said Felix, "I suggest nothing; it would be very presumptuous in me to advise you. But I think there is no doubt about the fact."
Mr. Brand looked hard at the floor for some moments; he was oppressed with a mixture of sensations. Felix, standing there, was very sure that one of them was profound surprise. The innocent young man had been completely unsuspicious of poor Charlotte's hidden flame.
This gave Felix great hope; he was sure that Mr. Brand would be flattered.
Felix thought him very transparent, and indeed he was so; he could neither simulate nor dissimulate. "I scarcely know what to make of this," he said at last, without looking up; and Felix was struck with the fact that he offered no protest or contradiction. Evidently Felix had kindled a train of memories--a retrospective illumination.
It was ******, to Mr. Brand's astonished eyes, a very pretty blaze; his second emotion had been a gratification of vanity.
"Thank me for telling you," Felix rejoined. "It 's a good thing to know."
"I am not sure of that," said Mr. Brand.
"Ah, don't let her languish!" Felix murmured, lightly and softly.
"You do advise me, then?" And Mr. Brand looked up.
"I congratulate you!" said Felix, smiling. He had thought at first his visitor was simply appealing; but he saw he was a little ironical.
"It is in your interest; you have interfered with me," the young clergyman went on.
Felix still stood and smiled. The little room had grown darker, and the crimson glow had faded; but Mr. Brand could see the brilliant expression of his face. "I won't pretend not to know what you mean," said Felix at last. "But I have not really interfered with you.
Of what you had to lose--with another person--you have lost nothing.
And think what you have gained!"
"It seems to me I am the proper judge, on each side," Mr. Brand declared.
He got up, holding the brim of his hat against his mouth and staring at Felix through the dusk.
"You have lost an illusion!" said Felix.
"What do you call an illusion?"
"The belief that you really know--that you have ever really known--
Gertrude Wentworth. Depend upon that," pursued Felix.
"I don't know her yet; but I have no illusions; I don't pretend to."
Mr. Brand kept gazing, over his hat. "She has always been a lucid, limpid nature," he said, solemnly.
"She has always been a dormant nature. She was waiting for a touchstone.
But now she is beginning to awaken."
"Don't praise her to me!" said Mr. Brand, with a little quaver in his voice.
"If you have the advantage of me that is not generous."
"My dear sir, I am melting with generosity!" exclaimed Felix.
"And I am not praising my cousin. I am simply attempting a scientific definition of her. She doesn't care for abstractions.
Now I think the contrary is what you have always fancied--is the basis on which you have been building. She is extremely preoccupied with the concrete. I care for the concrete, too.
But Gertrude is stronger than I; she whirls me along!"
Mr. Brand looked for a moment into the crown of his hat.
"It 's a most interesting nature."
"So it is," said Felix. "But it pulls--it pulls--like a runaway horse. Now I like the feeling of a runaway horse; and if I am thrown out of the vehicle it is no great matter.
But if you should be thrown, Mr. Brand"--and Felix paused a moment--"another person also would suffer from the accident."
"What other person?"
"Charlotte Wentworth!"
Mr. Brand looked at Felix for a moment sidewise, mistrustfully; then his eyes slowly wandered over the ceiling. Felix was sure he was secretly struck with the romance of the situation.
"I think this is none of our business," the young minister murmured.
"None of mine, perhaps; but surely yours!"
Mr. Brand lingered still, looking at the ceiling; there was evidently something he wanted to say. "What do you mean by Miss Gertrude being strong?" he asked abruptly.
"Well," said Felix meditatively, "I mean that she has had a great deal of self-possession. She was waiting--for years; even when she seemed, perhaps, to be living in the present.
She knew how to wait; she had a purpose. That 's what I mean by her being strong."
"But what do you mean by her purpose?"
"Well--the purpose to see the world!"
Mr. Brand eyed his strange informant askance again; but he said nothing. At last he turned away, as if to take leave.
He seemed bewildered, however; for instead of going to the door he moved toward the opposite corner of the room.
Felix stood and watched him for a moment--almost groping about in the dusk; then he led him to the door, with a tender, almost fraternal movement. "Is that all you have to say?" asked Mr. Brand.
"Yes, it 's all--but it will bear a good deal of thinking of."
Felix went with him to the garden-gate, and watched him slowly walk away into the thickening twilight with a relaxed rigidity that tried to rectify itself.
"He is offended, excited, bewildered, perplexed--and enchanted!"
Felix said to himself. "That 's a capital mixture."