Frances Hodgson Burnett

“ Arbuthnot wondered if she was, and thought again that she looked tired and a little pathetic. If he had known all her thoughts he would have felt the pathos in her eyes a thousand times more keenly.
She had a white hyacinth in her hand, whose odor seemed to reach him more powerfully at each stroke of the oars, and at last she turned and spoke, looking down at the flower.
"The saddest things that are left to one of a bitter experience," she said, in a low voice, "are the knowledge and distrust that come of it."
"They are very natural results," he replied, briefly. ”

“ Tredennis said, "that she did not like me."
"It is only fancy. She sees in you the strength she vaguely longed for when she was at the turning-point of her life. Let her feel that it is always near her, and that she may rely upon it now. You are fond of her children,—talk to her of them. When you see her inclined to be silent and unlike herself, bring them to her mind; when that fellow is there, manage that she shall think of them. Her tenderness for them is your stronghold and mine. To-night, why did I take her to the nursery? ”

“ What standard could be applied to a man who lied agreeably in his very thoughts of himself and his actions? He had scarcely made a statement during the last hour which had not contained some airy falsehood. Of whom was it he thought in his momentary anguish? Not of Bertha—not of her children—not of the gentle old scholar, who had always been lenient with his faults. It was of himself he was thinking—of Richard Amory, robbed of his refined picturesqueness by mere circumstance and placed by bad luck at a baleful disadvantage! ”

“ Without filling her life with excitement, she enjoyed the recreations of each day as they came, and felt no resulting fatigue. When Professor Herrick came to spend an evening hour with her and sat by the fire gently admiring her as he was led on to talk, and also gently admiring Mrs. Merriam, who was in a bright, shrewd humor, she herself was filled with pleasure in them both. She liked their ripeness of thought and their impartial judgment of the life whose prejudices they had outlived. And as genuinely as she liked this she enjoyed Colonel Tredennis, who now and then came too. ”

“ Bertha slipped from her grasp and fell upon her knees by the sofa, covering her face.
"Agnes," she panted, "I never thought of this—I don't know how it has come about. I never meant to speak. Almost the worst of it all is that my power over myself is gone, and that it has even come to this,—that I am speaking when I meant to be silent. Don't look at me! I don't know what it all means! All my life has been so different—it is so unlike me—that I say to myself it cannot be true. Perhaps it is not. I have never believed in such things. ”

“ He was not the man likely to become the victim of a hopeless passion in three weeks. His was a nature to awaken slowly, but to awaken to such strength of feeling and to such power to suffer, at last, as would leave no alternative between happiness and stolidly borne despair. If fate decreed that the despair and not the happiness was to be his portion, it would be borne silently and with stern patience, but it would be despair nevertheless. As it was, he had been gradually aroused to a vague tenderness of feeling for the brightness and sweetness which had been before him day after day. ”

“ Bertha replied, with a faint smile. "The men will not be unkind to me, you will see."
"They won't believe it, eh?" said Blundel. Her eyes met his, and the faint smile had a touch of bitterness.
"Some of them will not believe it," she answered; "and some will not care."
There was not the slightest shade of any distrust of herself or her surroundings, either in her face or manner, when, on reaching their destination, she made her way into the cloak-room. The place was already crowded—so crowded that a new-comer was scarcely noticeable. ”

“ There are those of us who try to believe there is none, but—but I am afraid those are happiest who lose all but their ideal. There are many who lose even that, and Fate has done her worst by them." He checked himself, and sank back in his chair.
"Ah!" he said, smiling half sadly. "I am an old man—an old man,—and it is an old man's fancy, that the best thing in life is death. And Fate did not do her worst by me; she left me my ideal. She had gray eyes," he added, "and a bright face, like Bertha's. ”

“ Bertha clasped her hands about her knee and leaned slightly forward, looking at the view as if she had never seen it before.
"Is this a dream?" Tredennis said, languidly, at last. "I think it must be."
"Yes," she answered, "that is why the air is so warm and fragrant, and the sky so blue, and the scent of the pines so delicious. It is all different when one is awake. That is why I am making the most of every second, and am determined to enjoy it to the very utmost." ”

“ People remembered her and were attracted, and she never made them angry or envious. Men who had been in love with her remained her friends. It was because she was so true to them. She was always a true friend."
She remembered so many incidents of those early days, and in her relation of them Bertha appeared again and again the same graceful, touching young presence, always generous and impetuous, ready of wit, bright of spirit, and tender of heart.
"We all loved her," said Agnes. "She was worth loving; and she is not changed."
"Not changed," said Tredennis, involuntarily. ”

“ And he found a piteous pleasure—at which at first he tried to smile, but at which before long he ceased even to try to smile—in the slow walk down the street, on which he could see this window or that, and remember some day when he had caught a glimpse of Bertha through it, or some night he had spent in the room within when she had been gayer than usual, or quieter,—when she had given him some new wound, perhaps, or when she had half-healed an old one in some mood of relenting he had not understood.
"There is no reason why I should understand any woman," was his simple thought. ”

“ Richard bit his lip.
"There seems to be a good deal of talk of sparing her," he said. "Nobody spares me. Every folly I have been guilty of is exaggerated into a crime. Do you suppose that fellow isn't used to that sort of thing? Do you suppose I should have run the risk if he had not shown his hand this afternoon? She knows nothing of what she is to give him. There is no harm done to her."
"How is he to know she is not in the plot?" said Tredennis. "How is he to guess that she is not—what she has been made to seem to be? What insult is he not at liberty to offer her if he chooses?" ”

“ Women seldom got all the flavor of his jokes. He had an idea that some of them were a little afraid of them and of him, too. The genuine mirth in Bertha's unstudied laughter was like wine to him, and was better than the guffaws of a dozen men, because it had a finer and a novel flavor. After the joke and the laugh the ice was melted, and he knew that he was in the humor to distinguish himself.
Planefield discovered this the moment he saw him, and glanced at Richard, who was brilliant with good spirits. ”

“ And, perhaps, this waning having set in, Richard was not at first invariably so enthusiastically glad to see the large military figure present itself in his office. He had reasons of his own for not always feeling entirely at ease before his whilom favorite. As he had remarked to Planefield, Philip Tredennis was not a malleable fellow. He had unflinching habits of truth, and remorseless ideas of what a man's integrity should be, and would not be likely to look with lenient or half-seeing eyes upon any palterings with falsehood and dishonor, however colored or disguised. ”

“ For the time being he was in no lenient mood.
"I know what people will say!" Richard exclaimed. "Do you suppose I have not thought of it a thousand times? I know what I should say if I did not know the circumstances. It is the circumstances that make the difference."
"The fact that they are your circumstances, and not another man's," began Tredennis; but there he checked himself. "I beg your pardon," he said, coldly. "I have no right to meet your confidence with blame. It will do no good. If I can give you no help, I might better be silent. ”

“ He was at no disadvantage when they talked together; he could keep pace with her and understand her gentle thoughts; she did not bewilder him or place him on the defensive. Once, as he looked at her sweet, reposeful face, he remembered what Bertha had said of his ideal woman and the thought rose in his mind that this was she—fair, feminine, full of all tender sympathy and kindly thought; not ignorant of the world nor bitter against it, only bearing no stain of it upon her. "All women should be so," he thought, sadly. ”

“ Just while everything is at the worst, it is not easy to remember that one only counts for one, after all, and that a life is such a little thing. It seems so much to one's self. And yet what does it matter that Bertha Amory's life went all wrong, and was only a bubble that was tossed away and broken? There are such millions and millions of people that it means nothing, only to Bertha Amory, and it cannot mean anything to her very long. ”

“ Sylvestre, softly, "I believe it. I wish I did not."
"What is there to be gained by it?" said Bertha; "a feeling that is not to be reasoned about or controlled; a miserable, feverish emotion you cannot understand, and can only resent and struggle against blindly. When you let it conquer you, how can you respect yourself or the object of it? What do women love men for? Who knows? It is like madness! All you can say is, 'I love him. ”

“ Things touch me for a moment. I was touched a little just now when you spoke of remembering my being a girl. I was moved when Janey was ill and you were so good to me. I almost persuaded myself that I was good too, and faithful and affectionate, and yet at the same time I knew it was only a fancy, and I should get over it. It is easy for me to laugh and cry when I choose. There are tears in my eyes now, but—they don't deceive me."
"They look like real tears, Bertha," he said. "They would have deceived me—if you had not given me warning."
"They always look real," she answered. ”

“ His tendency was to reverence for age, tenderness to womanhood and childhood, faithfulness to all things. There was something boyish and quixotic in his readiness to kindle in defence of any womanly weakness or pain. Nothing he had ever said, or done, had so keenly touched and delighted Professor Herrick as his fiery denunciation, one night, of a man who was the hero of a scandalous story. There had been no qualifications of his sweeping assertion that in such cases it must be the man who had earned the right to bear the blame. ”