"Ah, but if you don't FOR her? If it all comes on herself?""It doesn't," Guy Brissenden presently said."I do--'for' her--help to keep it up." And then, still unexpectedly to me, came out the rest of his confession."I want to--I try to; that's what I mean by being kind to her, and by the gratitude with which she takes it.One feels that one doesn't want her to break down."It was on this--from the poignant touch in it--that I at last felt Ihad burnt my ships and didn't care how much I showed I was with him."Oh, but she won't.You must keep her going."He stood a little with a thumb in each pocket of his trousers, and his melancholy eyes ranging far over my head--over the tops of the highest trees."Who am i to keep people going?""Why, you're just the man.Aren't you happy?"He still ranged the tree-tops."Yes."
"Well, then, you belong to the useful class.You've the wherewithal to give.It's the happy people who should help the others."He had, in the same attitude, another pause."It's easy for YOU to talk!""Because I'm not happy?"
It made him bring his eyes again down to me."I think you're a little so now at my expense."I shook my head reassuringly."It doesn't cost you anything if--as Iconfess to it now--I do to some extent understand.""That's more, then, than--after talking of it this way with you--I feel that i do!"He had brought that out with a sudden sigh, turning away to go on; so that we took a few steps more."You've nothing to trouble about," I then freely remarked, "but that you ARE as kind as the case requires and that you do help.I daresay that you'll find her even now on the terrace looking out for you." I patted his back, as we went a little further, but as Istill preferred to stay away from the house I presently stopped again.
"Don't fall below your chance.Noblesse oblige.We'll pull her through.""You say 'we,'" he returned, "but you do keep out of it!""Why should you wish me to interfere with you?" I asked."I wouldn't keep out of it if she wanted me as much as she wants you.That, by your own admission, is exactly what she doesn't.""Well, then," said Brissenden, "I'll make her go for you.I think Iwant your assistance quite as much as she can want mine.""Oh," I protested for this, "I've really given you already every ounce of mine I can squeeze out.And you know for yourself far more than I do.""No, I don't!"--with which he became quite sharp; "for you know HOWyou know it--which I've not a notion of.It's just what I think," he continued, facing me again, "you ought to tell me.""I'm a little in doubt of what you're talking of, but I suppose you to allude to the oddity of my being so much interested without my having been more informed.""You've got some clue," Brissenden said; "and a clue is what I myself want.""Then get it," I laughed, "from Mrs.Server!"He wondered."Does she know?"
I had still, after all, to dodge a little."Know what?""Why, that you've found out what she has to hide.""You're perfectly free to ask her.I wonder even that you haven't done so yet.""Well," he said with the finest stroke of unconsciousness he had yet shown me--"well, I suppose it's because I'm afraid of her.""But not too much afraid," I risked suggesting, "to be hoping at this moment that you'll find her if you go back to where most of our party is gathered.You're not going for tea--you're going for Mrs.Server: just of whom it was, as I say, you were thinking while you sat there with Lady John.So what is it you so greatly fear?"It was as if I could see through his dim face a sort of gratitude for my making all this out to him."I don't know that it's anything that she may do to ME." He could make it out in a manner for himself."It's as if something might happen to her.It's what I told you--that she may break down.If you ask me how, or in what," he continued, "how can I tell you?
In whatever it is that she's trying to do.I don't understand it." Then he wound up with a sigh that, in spite of its softness, he imperfectly stifled."But it's something or other!""What would it be, then," I asked, "but what you speak of as what I've 'found out'? The effort you distinguish in her is the effort of concealment--vain, as I gather it strikes you both, so far as i, in my supernatural acuteness, am concerned."Following this with the final ease to which my encouragement directly ministered, he yet gave me, before he had quite arrived, a queer sidelong glance."Wouldn't it really be better if you were to tell me? I don't ask her myself, you see.I don't put things to her in that way.""Oh, no--I've shown you how I do see.That's a part of your admirable consideration.But I must repeat that nothing would induce me to tell you."His poor old face fairly pleaded."But I want so to know.""Ah, there it is!" I almost triumphantly laughed.
"There what is?"
"Why, everything.What I've divined, between you and Mrs.Server, as the tie.Your wanting so to know."I felt as if he were now, intellectually speaking, plastic wax in my hand."And her wanting me not to?""Wanting ME not to," I smiled.
He puzzled it out."And being willing, therefore---""That you--you only, for sympathy, for fellowship, for the wild wonder of it--SHOULD know? Well, for all those things, and in spite of what you call your fear, TRY her!" With which now at last I quitted him.
