Scribner's Magazine, Volume 26, August 1899Various
General
Scribner's Magazine, Volume 26, August 1899
Various
American periodicals
had then re-entered the world as a professional philanthropist. Her name
was now associated entirely with Women's Leagues, with committees that
presented petitions to Parliament, and with public meetings, at which
she spoke with marvellous ease and effect. Her old friends said she had
taken up this new pose as an outlet for her nervous energies, and as an
effort to forget the man who alone had made life serious to her. Others
knew her as an earnest woman, acting honestly for what she thought was
right. Her success, all admitted, was due to her knowledge of the world
and to her sense of humor, which taught her with whom to use her wealth
and position, and when to demand what she wanted solely on the ground
that the cause was just.
She had taken more than a fancy to Helen, and the position of the
beautiful, motherless girl had appealed to her as one filled with dangers.
When she grew to know Helen better, she recognized that these fears were
quite unnecessary, and as she saw more of her she learned to care for
her deeply. Helen had told her much of Carroll and of his double purpose
in coming to London; of his brilliant work and his lack of success in
having it recognized; and of his great and loyal devotion to her, and
of his lack of success, not in having that recognized, but in her own
inability to return it. Helen was proud that she had been able to make
Carroll care for her as he did, and that there was anything about her
which could inspire a man whom she admired so much, to believe in her
so absolutely and for so long a time. But what convinced her that the
outcome for which he hoped was impossible, was the very fact that she
could admire him, and see how fine and unselfish his love for her was,
and yet remain untouched by it.
She had been telling Lady Gower one day of the care he had taken of her
ever since she was fourteen years of age, and had quoted some of the
friendly and loverlike acts he had performed in her service, until one
day they had both found out that his attitude of the elder brother was
no longer possible, and that he loved her in the old and only way. Lady
Gower looked at her rather doubtfully and smiled.
"I wish you would bring him to see me, Helen," she said; "I think I
should like your friend very much. From what you tell me of him I doubt
if you will find many such men waiting for you in this country. Our men
marry for reasons of property, or they love blindly, and are exacting
and selfish before and after they are married. I know, because so many
women came to me when my husband was alive to ask how it was that I
continued so happy in my married life."
"But I don't want to marry anyone," Helen remonstrated, gently. "American
girls are not always thinking only of getting married."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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