"Precisely," said I.
"After his ungentlemanly, discourteous, and wholly uncalled-for interference with my comfort at Newport," she said, her face flushing and tears coming into her eyes, "I don't wonder he's prostrated.""I do not know to what you refer," said I.
"I refer to the episode of the runaway horse," she said, in wrathful remembrance of the incident. "Because I refuse to follow blindly his will, he abuses his power, places me in a false and perilous situation, from which I, a defenceless woman, must rescue myself alone and unaided. It was unmanly of him--and I will pay him the compliment of saying wholly unlike him."I stood aghast. Poor Stuart was being blamed for my act. He must be set right at once, however unpleasant it might be for me.
"He--he didn't do that," I said, slowly; "it was I. I wrote that bit of nonsense; and he--well, he was mad because I did it, and said he'd like to kill any man who ill-treated you; and he made me promise never to touch upon your life again.""May I ask why you did that?" she asked, and I was glad to note that there was no displeasure in her voice--in fact, she seemed to cheer up wonderfully when I told her that it was I, and not Stuart, who had subjected her to the misadventure.
"Because I was angry with you," I answered. "You were ruining my friend with your continued acts of rebellion: he was successful; now he is ruined. He thinks of you day and night--he wants you for his heroine; he wants to make you happy, but he wants you to be happy in your own way; and when he thinks he has discovered your way, he works along that line, and all of a sudden, by some act wholly unforeseen, and, if I may say so, unforeseeable, you treat him and his work with contempt, draw yourself out of it--and he has to begin again.""And why have you ventured to break your word to your friend?" she asked, calmly. "Surely you are touching upon my life now, in spite of your promise.""Because I am willing to sacrifice my word to his welfare," Iretorted; "to try to make you understand how you are blocking the path of a mighty fine-minded man by your devotion to what you call your independence. He will never ask you to do anything that he knows will be revolting to you, and until he has succeeded in pleasing you to the last page of his book he will never write again.
I have done this in the hope of persuading you, at the cost even of some personal discomfort, not to rebel against his gentle leadership--to fall in with his ideas until he can fulfil this task of his, whether it be realism or pure speculation on his part. If you do this, Stuart is saved. If you do not, literature will be called upon to mourn one who promises to be one of its brightest ornaments."I stopped short. Miss Andrews was gazing pensively out over the mirror-like surface of the Lake. Finally she spoke.
"You may tell Mr. Harley," she said, with a sigh, "that I will trouble him no more. He can do with me as he pleases in all save one particular. He shall not marry me to a man I do not love. If he takes the man I love for my hero, then will I follow him to the death.""And may I ask who that man is?"
"You may ask if you please," she replied, with a little smile. "But I won't answer you, except to say that it isn't you.""And am I forgiven for my runaway story?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "You wouldn't expect me to condemn a man for loyalty to his friend, would you?"With which understanding Miss Andrews and I continued our walk, and when we parted I found that the little interview I had started to write had turned into the suggestion of a romance, which I was in duty bound to destroy--but I began to have a glimmering of an idea as to who the man was that Marguerite Andrews wished for a hero, and Iregretted also to find myself convinced of the truth of her statement that that man did not bear my name.