"Why not?"
"Because I have no right."
"Everyone has a right to ask help, especially the weak of the strong.
Can I help you? Believe me, I most heartily offer my poor services."
"Ah, you forget! This dress, the borrowed splendor of these jewels, the
freedom of this gay evening, the romance of the part you played, all
blind you to the reality. For a moment I cease to be a servant, and for
a moment you treat me as an equal."
It was true; he had forgotten. That soft, reproachful glance touched
him, his distrust melted under the new charm, and he answered with real
feeling in voice and face, "I treat you as an equal because you are
one; and when I offered help, it is not to my sister's governess alone,
but to Lady Howard's daughter."
"Who told you that?" she demanded, sitting erect.
"My uncle. Do not reproach him. It shall go no further, if you forbid
it. Are you sorry that I know it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I will not be pitied!" And her eyes flashed as she made a
half-defiant gesture.
"Then, if I may not pity the hard fate which has befallen an innocent
life, may I admire the courage which meets adverse fortune so bravely,
and conquers the world by winning the respect and regard of all who see
and honor it?"
Miss Muir averted her face, put up her hand, and answered hastily, "No,
no, not that! Do not be kind; it destroys the only barrier now left
between us. Be cold to me as before, forget what I am, and let me go on
my way, unknown, unpitied, and unloved!"
Her voice faltered and failed as the last word was uttered, and she bent
her face upon her hand. Something jarred upon Coventry in this speech,
and moved him to say, almost rudely, "You need have no fears for me.
Lucia will tell you what an iceberg I am."
"Then Lucia would tell me wrong. I have the fatal power of reading
character; I know you better than she does, and I see--" There she
stopped abruptly.
"What? Tell me and prove your skill," he said eagerly.
Turning, she fixed her eyes on him with a penetrating power that made
him shrink as she said slowly, "Under the ice I see fire, and warn you
to beware lest it prove a volcano."
For a moment he sat dumb, wondering at the insight of the girl; for she
was the first to discover the hidden warmth of a nature too proud to
confess its tender impulses, or the ambitions that slept till some
potent voice awoke them. The blunt, almost stern manner in which she
warned him away from her only made her more attractive; for there was no
conceit or arrogance in it, only a foreboding fear emboldened by past
suffering to be frank. Suddenly he spoke impetuously: "You are right! I am not what I seem, and my indolent indifference is
but the mask under which I conceal my real self. I could be as
passionate, as energetic and aspiring as Ned, if I had any aim in
life. I have none, and so I am what you once called me, a thing to
pity and despise."