He could think of her in no other light. He might have
done so; for the poor girl had her other sides for view. She had
one of those sharp, tawdry intellects whose possessors are always
reckoned "brilliant women, fine talkers." She was (aside from
the necessary sarcasm to keep up this reputation) a good-humoured
soul enough,--when no one stood in her way. But if her shallow
virtues or vices were palpable at all to him, they became one
with the torpid beauty of the oppressive summer day, and weighed
on him alike with a vague disgust. The woman luxuriated in
perfume; some heavy odour always hung about her. Holmes,
thinking of her now, fancied he felt it stifling the air, and
opened the window for breath. Patchouli or copperas,--what was
the difference? The mill and his future wife came to him
together; it was scarcely his fault, if he thought of them as
one, or muttered, "Damnable clog!" as he sat down to write, his
cold eye growing colder. But he did not argue the question any
longer; decision had come keenly in one moment, fixed,
unalterable.
If, through the long day, the starved heart of the man called
feebly for its natural food, he called it a paltry weakness; or
if the old thought of the quiet, pure little girl in the office
below came back to him, he--he wished her well, he hoped she
might succeed in her work, he would always be ready to lend her a
helping hand. So many years (he was ashamed to think how many)
he had built the thought of this girl as his wife into the
future, put his soul's strength into the hope, as if love and the
homely duties of husband and father were what life was given for!
A boyish fancy, he thought.
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