"Never dare to mention this any more to me, Fred," said Mary, getting
serious again. "I don't know whether it is more stupid or ungenerous
in you not to see that Mr. Farebrother has left us together on purpose
that we might speak freely. I am disappointed that you should be so
blind to his delicate feeling."
There was no time to say any more before Mr. Farebrother came back with
the engraving; and Fred had to return to the drawing-room still with a
jealous dread in his heart, but yet with comforting arguments from
Mary's words and manner. The result of the conversation was on the
whole more painful to Mary: inevitably her attention had taken a new
attitude, and she saw the possibility of new interpretations. She was
in a position in which she seemed to herself to be slighting Mr.
Farebrother, and this, in relation to a man who is much honored, is
always dangerous to the firmness of a grateful woman. To have a reason
for going home the next day was a relief, for Mary earnestly desired to
be always clear that she loved Fred best. When a tender affection has
been storing itself in us through many of our years, the idea that we
could accept any exchange for it seems to be a cheapening of our lives.
And we can set a watch over our affections and our constancy as we can
over other treasures.
"Fred has lost all his other expectations; he must keep this," Mary
said to herself, with a smile curling her lips. It was impossible to
help fleeting visions of another kind--new dignities and an
acknowledged value of which she had often felt the absence. But these
things with Fred outside them, Fred forsaken and looking sad for the
want of her, could never tempt her deliberate thought.