I wondered too, very much. I had had no idea that I loved
Thorold; no dream that he liked me had ever entered my head. I
thought we were friends, and that was all. Indeed I had not
known there was anything in the world more, until one night
ago.
But I winced a little, privately, in the very bottom of my
heart, that I had let Thorold have so much liberty; that I had
let him know so easily what he was to me. I seemed unlike the
Daisy Randolph of my former acquaintance. She was never so
free. But it was done; and I had been taken unawares and at
disadvantage, with the thought of coming danger and separation
checking every reserve I would have shown. I had to be content
with myself at all events; Thorold knew my weakness and would
never forget it another time.
I thought a great many other thoughts that night; some of them
were grave enough. My sleep however, when I went to sleep, was
as light as the fall of the dew. I could not be careful. Just
seventeen, and just come into life's great inheritance, my
spirit was strong, as such spirits are, to throw off every
burden.
For several days it happened that I was too busy to see Miss
Cardigan. I used to look over to her house, those days, as the
place where I had begun to live. Meanwhile I was bending my
energies to work, with a serious consciousness of woman's life
and responsibility before me. In one way I think I felt ten
years older, when next I crossed the avenue and went into the
familiar marble-paved hall and opened Miss Cardigan's door.
That Thorold was not there, was the first thought with me.
Certainly the world had made a revolution; but all things else
looked as usual; and Miss Cardigan gave me a welcome just as
if the world had not turned round. She was busy with the
affairs of some poor people, and plunged me into them as her
custom was. But I fancied a somewhat more than usual of sober
gravity in her manner. I fancied, and then was sure of it;
though for a long time nothing was said which touched Thorold
or me. I had forgotten that it was to come; and then it came.
"And what have ye been doing, my bonnie lady, since ye went
away at eight o'clock o' the morn?"
I started, and found that I had lost myself in a reverie. I
said, I had been studying.
"You and me have need to study some new things," Miss Cardigan
said, soberly.