'I think you are so good and so kind.' As she said this she leaned upon his arm almost as though she meant to tell him that she loved him.
'I have been angry with myself,' he said, 'and so I am making you my father confessor. Open confession is good for the soul sometimes, and I think that you would understand me better than your mother.'
'I do understand you; but don't think there is any fault to confess.'
'You will not exact any penance?' She only looked at him and smiled. 'I am going to put a penance on myself all the same. I can't congratulate your brother on his wooing over at Caversham, as I know nothing about it, but I will express some civil wish to him about things in general.'
'Will that be a penance?'
'If you could look into my mind you'd find that it would. I'm full of fretful anger against him for half-a-dozen little frivolous things. Didn't he throw his cigar on the path? Didn't he lie in bed on Sunday instead of going to church?'
'But then he was travelling all the Saturday night.'
'Whose fault was that? But don't you see it is the triviality of the offence which makes the penance necessary. Had he knocked me over the head with a pickaxe, or burned the house down, I should have had a right to be angry. But I was angry because he wanted a horse on Sunday;-- and therefore I must do penance.'
There was nothing of love in all this. Hetta, however, did not wish him to talk of love. He was certainly now treating her as a friend,--as a most intimate friend. If he would only do that without making love to her, how happy could she be! But his determination still held good. 'And now,' said he, altering his tone altogether, 'I must speak about myself.' Immediately the weight of her hand upon his arm was lessened. Thereupon he put his left hand round and pressed her arm to his. 'No,' he said; 'do not make any change towards me while I speak to you. Whatever comes of it we shall at any rate be cousins and friends.'
'Always friends!' she said.
'Yes,--always friends. And now listen to me for I have much to say. I will not tell you again that I love you. You know it, or else you must think me the vainest and falsest of men. It is not only that I love you, but I am so accustomed to concern myself with one thing only, so constrained by the habits and nature of my life to confine myself to single interests, that I cannot as it were escape from my love. I am thinking of it always, often despising myself because I think of it so much. For, after all, let a woman be ever so good,--and you to me are all that is good,--a man should not allow his love to dominate his intellect.'