In the midst of my musings, Hugh Marshall came and threw
himself on the ground at my side. I welcomed him with a smile;
for I liked him; he was a friend; and I thought, - This one
does not want me at any rate. I was a great simpleton, I
suppose.
"I was afraid you had deserted me to-day," he said.
"I am sure, it is I who might rather have thought that of
you," I answered; and indeed I had wished for his company more
than once.
"You could not have thought it!" he said.
"Have you satisfied your curiosity with Eugene Sue's house?"
"I do not care to look at anything that you don't like," he
replied.
"Cigars? -" I suggested.
"No indeed. If you disapprove of them, I shall have no more
fellowship with them."
"That is going quite too far, Mr. Marshall. A man should never
give up anything that he does not disapprove of himself."
"Not to please somebody he wishes to please?"
"Of course," I said, thinking of Mr. Thorold, - "there might
be such cases. But in general."
"This is one of the cases. I wish to please you."
"Thank you," I said earnestly. "But indeed, I should be more
pleased to have you follow your own sense of right than any
notion of another, even of myself."
"You are not like any other woman I ever saw," he said
smiling. "Do you know, they all have a passion for command?
There are De Saussure's mother and sisters, - they do not
leave him a moment's peace, because he is not at home
fighting."
I was silent, and hoped that Mr. De Saussure's friends might
now perhaps get him away from Geneva at least.
"You think with them, that he ought to go?" Hugh Marshall said
presently with a shadow, I thought, on his words.
"I would not add one more to the war," I answered.
"Your mother does not think so."
"No."
"Mrs. Randolph has almost signified to me that her favour will
depend on my taking such a course, and doing all I can to help
on the Confederacy."
"Yes, I know," I said rather sadly; "mamma feels very strongly
about it."
"You do not?"
"Yes, Mr. Marshall, I do; but it is in a different way."
"I wish you would explain," he said earnestly.
"But I do not like to set myself in opposition to mamma; and
you ought to do what you yourself think right, Mr. Marshall;
not what either of us thinks."
"What do you think is right?" he repeated eagerly.
"My thoughts do not make or unmake anything."
"They make - they will make, if you will let them - the rule
of my life," he answered. "I have no dearer wish."