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Page 62
Jacob Worse again began to lose his self-command. "I don't mind your
calling me a coward, Miss Garman. But when you think, or pretend to
think, that I am not speaking more seriously than some of these--"
"No, no; sit down, I beg you," said Rachel, anxiously, putting her hand
on his arm. "I did not mean any harm, but I am so suspicious. I beg
pardon. There, now, don't think any more about it. You really do think,
then, that I ought to write?"
"I am quite sure you ought," answered Worse, who soon became quiet
again. "You have so much originality and so much energy, that you will
be able to overcome every difficulty, and in courage you are certainly
not wanting."
Amid the whirl of the dance around them, these encouraging words sounded
doubly strange in her ears, and seemed to open out new vistas before
her.
"But what have I got to write about? What do I know that the world does
not know already? No, you really must be wrong, Mr. Worse. It is beyond
me;" and she looked down at her dress, and could not help feeling that
Worse was becoming rather dull.
"It is not very easy to say beforehand what your subject ought to be,"
said he; "but it is clear that there are endless things that the world
can only learn from a woman, and which it seems to be expecting to hear.
For you it is but to have the will. You are now passing through a crisis
in your life, and you have such a fund of energy--"
"You seem to be treating me more like a chemical equivalent than like a
human being, not to say like a lady," said Rachel, laughing.
"Let us be thankful that you have so little of the lady about you," said
Jacob Worse, bluntly.
The dance now began for which Rachel was otherwise engaged, and her
partner came and carried her off.
Jacob Worse stood watching her for a few minutes. He then got his coat
and went home.
He perfectly understood that by awakening these thoughts in her, he
would make the fulfilment of what was really the dream of his life
become more distant than ever. But he felt convinced that Rachel's
splendid abilities would be entirely thrown away in her present narrow
sphere; and he felt, too, that he was perfectly honest to himself, when
he said that he would not hinder her from taking the path she ought to
follow, even if he thereby destroyed his own greatest happiness. But
when he got home and was alone in his own quiet room, he was even more
dispirited. He could not but see that when Rachel came to have a proper
estimate of her own powers, she would find her present home too narrow
for her, and a marriage such as he could offer would be quite unworthy
of her.
He saw a light in the rooms at the back of the house. It was not much
past eleven; so he went over to his mother, whom he found in her
dressing-gown, busied in arranging her small remnant of hair for the
night.
It was not astonishing that the worthy Mrs. Worse's eyes kindled with
pride when she saw her tall, handsome son come in, dressed as he had
been for the ball: but when he threw himself on the sofa, and hid his
face in his hands, and said, "Oh, mother! mother!" just as he had done
in his boyhood when he had done something foolish, Mrs. Worse shook her
clenched fist against some imaginary foe in the corner of the room, and
muttered, "Is it decent to send me home a son in such a plight?"
She did not, however, say the words aloud, but went over and took his
head upon her lap, and, as she passed her fingers through his hair, she
said with her unwavering constancy, "There, my dear boy, only keep
yourself calm, and it will all come right, somehow or another."
Rachel would also have been glad enough to have been taken home at once;
but Mrs. Garman had heard that the new cook had something new in
_filets_, and they therefore had to wait until after supper.
CHAPTER XVI.
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