The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot [rocket ebook reader txt] 📗

I’ve said it. I shall be contented if things can be as they were.”

The distress with which he spoke urged Maggie to say something. “I am so surprised, Philip; I had not thought of it.” And the effort to say this brought the tears down too.

“Has it made you hate me, Maggie?” said Philip, impetuously. “Do you think I’m a presumptuous fool?”

“Oh, Philip!” said Maggie, “how can you think I have such feelings? As if I were not grateful for any love. But⁠—but I had never thought of your being my lover. It seemed so far off⁠—like a dream⁠—only like one of the stories one imagines⁠—that I should ever have a lover.”

“Then can you bear to think of me as your lover, Maggie?” said Philip, seating himself by her, and taking her hand, in the elation of a sudden hope. “Do you love me?”

Maggie turned rather pale; this direct question seemed not easy to answer. But her eyes met Philip’s, which were in this moment liquid and beautiful with beseeching love. She spoke with hesitation, yet with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness.

“I think I could hardly love anyone better; there is nothing but what I love you for.” She paused a little while, and then added: “But it will be better for us not to say any more about it, won’t it, dear Philip? You know we couldn’t even be friends, if our friendship were discovered. I have never felt that I was right in giving way about seeing you, though it has been so precious to me in some ways; and now the fear comes upon me strongly again, that it will lead to evil.”

“But no evil has come, Maggie; and if you had been guided by that fear before, you would only have lived through another dreary, benumbing year, instead of reviving into your real self.”

Maggie shook her head. “It has been very sweet, I know⁠—all the talking together, and the books, and the feeling that I had the walk to look forward to, when I could tell you the thoughts that had come into my head while I was away from you. But it has made me restless; it has made me think a great deal about the world; and I have impatient thoughts again⁠—I get weary of my home; and then it cuts me to the heart afterward, that I should ever have felt weary of my father and mother. I think what you call being benumbed was better⁠—better for me⁠—for then my selfish desires were benumbed.”

Philip had risen again, and was walking backward and forward impatiently.

“No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as I’ve often told you. What you call self-conquest⁠—binding and deafening yourself to all but one train of impressions⁠—is only the culture of monomania in a nature like yours.”

He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down by her again and took her hand.

“Don’t think of the past now, Maggie; think only of our love. If you can really cling to me with all your heart, every obstacle will be overcome in time; we need only wait. I can live on hope. Look at me, Maggie; tell me again it is possible for you to love me. Don’t look away from me to that cloven tree; it is a bad omen.”

She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad smile.

“Come, Maggie, say one kind word, or else you were better to me at Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss me⁠—don’t you remember?⁠—and you promised to kiss me when you met me again. You never kept the promise.”

The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief to Maggie. It made the present moment less strange to her. She kissed him almost as simply and quietly as she had done when she was twelve years old. Philip’s eyes flashed with delight, but his next words were words of discontent.

“You don’t seem happy enough, Maggie; you are forcing yourself to say you love me, out of pity.”

“No, Philip,” said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old childish way; “I’m telling you the truth. It is all new and strange to me; but I don’t think I could love anyone better than I love you. I should like always to live with you⁠—to make you happy. I have always been happy when I have been with you. There is only one thing I will not do for your sake; I will never do anything to wound my father. You must never ask that from me.”

“No, Maggie, I will ask nothing; I will bear everything; I’ll wait another year only for a kiss, if you will only give me the first place in your heart.”

“No,” said Maggie, smiling, “I won’t make you wait so long as that.” But then, looking serious again, she added, as she rose from her seat⁠—

“But what would your own father say, Philip? Oh, it is quite impossible we can ever be more than friends⁠—brother and sister in secret, as we have been. Let us give up thinking of everything else.”

“No, Maggie, I can’t give you up⁠—unless you are deceiving me; unless you really only care for me as if I were your brother. Tell me the truth.”

“Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have I ever had so great as being with you⁠—since I was a little girl⁠—the days Tom was good to me? And your mind is a sort of world to me; you can tell me all I want to know. I think I should never be tired of being with you.”

They were walking hand in hand, looking at each other; Maggie, indeed, was hurrying along, for she felt it time to be gone. But the sense that their parting was near made her more anxious lest she should have unintentionally left some painful impression on Philip’s mind. It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive; when feeling, rising high above its average depth,