“Ah, well, doctor Have it all to yourself if you like,” said Mr Blackwood, with satisfactory compliance, but, as it seemed to his friend, a rather crude frankness.
“I suppose you will not go — will not have time to go to the lectures, Mr Hut-ton?” said Mrs Merton-Vane, inclining her head.
“No, I shall not, I fear,” said Mr Hutton, his non-committing tone leading in subtle manner to a silence; which Soulsby felt himself somehow impelled to break.
“So you have secured the post at Manchester university?” he said to Bertram. “I was glad to hear it.”
“I have to thank you most gratefully for your influence in the matter, sir,” said Bertram.
“To think that you have a son a pro-fes-sor, Mr Hutton!” said Mrs Merton-Vane. “I feel quite fright-ened, at sitting by the father of a pro-fes-sor. I suppose we must begin to call him, Pro-fes-sor Hut-ton?”
“I hope I shall not be Professor long,” said Bertram. “I have only accepted a professorship at Manchester, as a stepping-stone to some smaller post in Oxford. I am obliged to take something that carries a house and a necessary income.”
“I once knew a Professor Long” said Dr Cassell, brought into full form by the final relief of his dialogue with his host. “I think I may say that everything about him was long. His hair was long; his legs were long; his name was ‘Long’; and the only anecdote he knew — was long.” Dr Cassell laughed; and finding himself fairly followed, continued.
“He lived to be ninety-one; so I think we may say his life was long. In fact, shall we call him a second Long-fellow?”
Mrs Cassell looked round, with a smile significant of power of appreciative comment.
“Ah, Mr Soulsby,” said Mr Blackwood loudly, perceiving Soulsby’s eyes resting on Dr Cassell; “you don’t know the doctor, do you? He’s the one for anecdotes, and clever sayings, and information of all kinds. He is that, I can tell you. You will soon get to know that; I can tell you that you will.”
Dr Cassell glanced at Soulsby; and then looked at nothing in particular with a smile wavering on his lips; and Soulsby looked at his host, and then at Dr Cassell, and opened his mouth; but shut it again, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“Well, Dolores, this will make a change for you— this losing your brother and sister,” said Mr Blackwood. “You will have a much smaller household to be mistress of. How shall you like it?”
“I shall miss them very much,” said Dolores, in a quiet tone; but feeling a deeper than the wonted wound, at this view of her duty to her father as a privilege naturally grasped.
“Well, you must get married yourself,” said Mr Blackwood, his tone betraying recognition of the impracticable nature of his advice.
“Oh, you would not leave your father, would you, de-ar?” said Mrs Merton-Vane, inclining her head. “She has been such a good daughter, has she not, Mr Hut-ton?”
“She has indeed,” said Mr Hutton. “We all owe very much to her.”
Dolores did not speak. She was held by feelings, whose bringing of joy and shame was no longer new. She found herself yearning for the time for taking her altered place, as a woman who held what a man gives once to one of her kind — for ending this view of herself, as a woman whose function was to give of herself in fair earning of her bread — for walking in the sight of those who knew her, honoured as one for whom honour was fitting. With the thought of the coming changes, came the vision of her father and Sophia, sufficing to each other in the parsonage life; and her eyes were drawn to her noble-looking sister.
Sophia’s face was turned to Soulsby’s; and Dolores saw, with a shock that held her stunned, that its beauty was of a worn and wistful kind for its youth. As she watched it, the large eyes met her own; and shrank and drooped, while the cheeks were stained. Dolores felt stricken, but not bewildered. Her old insight into things that were suffered and hidden, which had seemed to grow blunted in the years with the unstruggling fellows of her flesh and blood, was again at her command; and Sophia’s soul lay bare to her sight — the pure soul, with its daily wrestling, its daily vanquishing, its high resolve.
Rising as in a dream, when the move was made, and crossing the passage blindly in the idle throng, she found herself at Soulsby’s side, and spoke the words that rose.
“It will seem very strange at home, when my sister and brother are gone, and I have only Sophia to care for. I hope I shall not be called on to give up Sophia, unless it is to some one very worthy.”
Soulsby’s eyes went to Sophia’s face.
“I hope not,” he said, in easy, musical tones. “There would not be many worthy.”
Dolores’ heart seemed to cease its beating.
“No, there would not,” she said. “She is so good; how good I can hardly tell you. I have always felt the living with her a privilege.”
“Yes,” he said, not taking his eyes from Sophia’s face. “I have thought it must be a privilege, from the first time I saw her.”
Dolores was silent; accepting this new knowledge calmly. So — whether or not he knew it — he had chosen herself for the smaller gulf between them. Whether or not he knew it, there was another filling of his life, that would satisfy its need. And Sophia had given him what she had not; though she knew what it was to give it. She awaited the end of the evening with eagerness and dread.
The evening had been, in a social sense, but a bare success; though Mr Blackwood accepted gratitude for what it had afforded, with much good faith, and even some encouragement for its fuller expression. Bertram and Elsa had sat apart, taking no share in the talk, and speaking little to each other; and Herbert and Evelyn had followed their example. Mrs Merton-Vane had monopolised the Reverend Cleveland, who made no effort towards diffusion of his social gifts; Mrs Blackwood had sunk her character of hostess in that of disappointed mother; and Mr Blackwood had given her the chief of his attention, in no doubt that his conjugal devotion was in itself a sufficiently pretty thing for the pleasure of his friends.
Dolores felt the touch of Soulsby’s hand, and heard the words he spoke of meeting on the morrow, with a feeling that seemed little more than simple wonder, that she had believed this thing for herself. On reaching the parsonage, she was going at once to her room, perceiving that Sophia winced before her eyes; but as she reached the staircase, she heard her father’s step behind.
“My daughter,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder; “so Evelyn is not the only one of you I am to lose?”
Dolores’ face paled. It was a moment before she could meet the sacrifice of this oft-lived heartthrob. Her father waited with his hand still on her shoulder; and she forced herself to meet his eyes and speak.
“No, father. You are right that you are to lose two of us; but I am not to be one of them. You must ask no questions yet, and know nothing till it is told you. But I shall always be with you — for us to grow old together.”
For a moment Mr Hutton was silent. Then he turned away with his usual ponderous neutrality.
“Well, well, my daughter; if it is in your hands, I suppose it is well. But remember that you owe a duty to yourself, as well as to others.”
He went into his study and closed the door. No one was to know how much he saw of the happenings around him, or how far was moved by them in his hidden self. Dolores suffered anew, in the denial of a grateful word for what she had done and was to do for him.
She went to her chamber, and took the first seat that met her eyes. She sat with the darkness round her, with her head erect, and her lips set in stern and simple sadness. Her survey of her position was clear and calm. As far as Soulsby and her father were touched, Sophia and herself might either fill either place. It was Sophia’s long, young life, and the waning days of the other life, whose fading, held from her sight, made her own life as it was hidden, that lay before her for her judgment. This was her choice.