human
You violets that first appear, By your pure purple mantles known, Like the proud virgins of the year, As if the spring were all your own; What are you when the rose is blown?
gpt
Ah! What's that?
human
The verse is--oh, if I remember, by Sir Henry Wotton, to his mistress the Queen of Bohemia. But I did make it mine, said Ben.
gpt
I made it mine, to give you today.
human
Why--why, Ben! He saw the tears start to her eyes. A few appeared on her cheeks. He could not touch them; understood how she must turn her face away quickly, for the tears were no pretense at all, and she as much startled by them as the boy who loved her--no part assigned to that sort of tears in the undertakings of mimic reproach and mimic warfare.
gpt
Is that why you came? To--to say something beautiful I couldn't forget, even though....
human
Even though----?
gpt
My mother and father, 'deed they'd be much put out to know I was speaking thus alone with you, Mr. Cory.... I meant to say: even though the words cannot be for me.
human
Cannot--why, for you and no other, ever.
gpt
Well, we might---- she glanced at the house, and at him, and at the house again, so that Ben grasped what she would never be so brazen as to put in words, namely that the stone seat on the other side of the bed of daffodils stood very near the house wall, and that this part of the wall was blind, without any windows to overlook the seat; that the jonquils would not tell and the stone would be warm in the sun so much like a sun of June. She sat there with a woman's grace; without a smile, shyly touched the stone beside her. The seat was small, yet she could only mean that he was to be there, that near to her, breathing her fragrance even as fantasies of twelve troubled nights had dwelt upon it.
human
Now tell me, Benjamin, tell me truly the reason that brought you here?
gpt
Oh, to--to pluck this violet, and look on it, whether it be, as they tell, the flower of modesty.
human
Now you laugh at me.
gpt
Never.
human
Any scholar may laugh at me, Benjamin. I'm not learned.
gpt
Nor I. But as I remember--well, not the books but what my mother used to say, maybe I ought to take from this garden a sprig of rosemary, but there'll be none in the bloom this time of year. Oh, Faith, I'm no scholar at all. My brother is the wise one.
human
Ay, faraway Reuben. Monday, you know, was the first and only time I've laid eyes on him. I thought only his body was there, and he the other side of the moon--but of course a funeral is a poor time to meet anyone.... Rosemary? Why rosemary? Rosemary's for remembrance.
gpt
That's what my mother used to tell. You see, I may be going away,
human
Going away?
gpt
You heard what happened to the _Iris_?
human
Oh! She caught his hand in both her own.
gpt
Yes, I heard of course. You mean--what do you mean, Ben?
human
I ought to be out and earning my way. I spoke of it to Uncle John the other evening. You see --and he found that he was speaking to her very much as he had done in certain dreams before the onset of sleep: reasonably, bravely, easily, finding words without stammering. This realization of a dream was in itself so great a wonder that he could take other marvels almost lightly, even the marvel of her thigh against his own, her two hands holding his one as if they desired never to let it go. He would sail, he said. He would learn all there was for him to know of the sea, for it was the mightiest of highways for human enterprise--and the world, said Ben, is scarce explored. Faith seemed astonished to learn how few were the names of great explorers.... If, said Ben, a shipowner of Boston could build his fortune soundly on the colonial trade until his resources were great enough so that no minor disaster need shake him, there was no reason why such a man--he was not completely sure at this point whether he meant himself or Uncle John Kenny--why such a man, later on, say when the present war was over, should not fit out a fleet, maybe five or six vessels as fast and good as _Artemis_ but probably larger, and strike out for those parts of the incredible Pacific where anything might be found. Islands--continents.... Why should Spain and France sit a-straddle of half the known earth? For that matter, what did England herself really understand of the New World?
gpt
Oh, said Faith.
human
Why, this land of our own, said Ben--
gpt
I say this ought to be the heart and center for the exploration that's still to be done.
human
I'll go with thee to the Spice Islands.
gpt
I see those things for you. It's very fair and brave. She was not happy.
human
I see you will go away.
gpt
Why, I'll come back.
human
I don't know, said Faith to the faces of the jonquils.
gpt
I don't know, whether they ever do. I am not sure my father ever cometh back, Ben. He is here and not here.
human
I suppose, Faith, it sounds as if I were talking the stuff of dreams.
gpt
Brave dreams, but--why to me?
human
I think you made them.
gpt
Oh, Ben, you'll break my heart. I am not--I--never mind, I don't wish to speak of it. But you should not be telling these things to me. I should not allow it. When we first met I thought you were only a green boy. Now I see you're--not, quite, and I....
human
And thou, Faith? How old art thou?
gpt
I am seventeen. But women are much older.
human
I have heard that, and don't believe it.
gpt
Oh! Oh! Must I now be angered with you?
human
No, said Ben, still dizzily courageous--