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He followed with a systematic docility the direction of her eyes. “Well, there are others than these—things for which I’ve spoken, repeatedly and loudly, to others than you. One’s ‘human home’ is all very well, but the rest of one’s humanity is better! There are thousands of people in England who can show no houses at all, and I don’t feel it utterly shameful to share their poor fate!”
She had moved away with impatience, the back she turned preventing him from seeing how intently she listened. “We share the poor fate of humanity whatever we do, and we do something to help and console when we’ve something precious to show. What on earth is more precious than what the ages have slowly wrought? They’ve trusted us, in such a case, to keep it—to do something, in our turn, for them.” She shone out at him as if her contention had the evidence of the noonday sun. “It’s such a virtue, in anything, to have lasted; it’s such an honour to have been spared. To all strugglers from the wreck of time hold out a pitying hand!”
Yule, on this argument, had not a congruous rejoinder pat, and his hesitation gave him time to see that what had touched him most was her particular air in presenting it. He took refuge in general pleasantry. “What a plea for looking backward, dear lady, to come from Missoura Top!”
“We’re making a Past at Missoura Top as fast as ever we can, and I should like to see you lay your hand on an hour of the one we’ve made! It’s a tight fit, as yet, and that’s just why I like, in yours, to find room to turn round. You’re in it, over here, and you can’t get out; so just make the best of that and treat the thing as part of the fun!”
“The whole of the fun, to me,” the young man replied, “is in hearing you defend it! It’s like your defending hereditary gout or chronic rheumatism—the things I feel aching in every old bone of these walls.”
Mrs. Gracedew looked as if no woman could be shaken who was so prepared to be just all round. “If there be aches—you’re here to soothe them, and if there be draughts—you’re here to stop them up. And do you know what I’m here for? If I’ve come so far and so straight, I’ve almost wondered myself. I’ve felt with a kind of passion—but now I see why I’ve felt.” She moved about the hall with the excitement of this perception. “I’m here for an act of salvation—I’m here to avert a sacrifice!”
So they stood a little, with more passing between them than either could say. She might have flung down a glove that he decided, on the whole, not to pick up. Again, but flushed as well as smiling, he sought the easiest cover. “You’re here, I think, madam, to be a memory for all my future!”
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