human
Please go to bed properly in your own room, Honour. I want nobody but Nanna.
gpt
I will only lie down here, in case you call. I won't say a word,
human
I will send Nanna if I want you. Please go. As Honour still hesitated, her voice rose higher.
gpt
Go, go! I don't want you here. You never appreciated my dear Charley.
human
Go, missy, go! entreated the old woman.
gpt
Missus not know what she done say.
human
Oh, Marian, how can you say such a thing? Why, if I had not liked him for himself, I should have loved him because he was so fond of you, dear fellow!
gpt
You said to mamma that he was so very ordinary. I heard you through the _chiks_,
human
I didn't mean you to hear. How could I tell you were there? And I learned to know him better afterwards--how good and kind he was.
gpt
It was not my hearing you, but your saying it, that mattered. I could laugh at it at the time, knowing what he really was, but now--I can't bear to have you in the room with me, to-night, at any rate, when you misjudged him so.
human
Oh, Marian, how can you be so unkind? If I was in trouble, I would not keep you away.
gpt
You would not be in this kind of trouble. You couldn't be. It isn't in you. Marian hurled her shafts deliberately.
human
You don't understand what it is to care for any one as I care for Charley, and I believe you never will. You can let two men go on making love to you at once for more than a year, because you can't make up your mind which of them you like best.
gpt
Is that my fault? I don't like either of them in that way.
human
No, but you like knowing that they think of you, and care for you, and watch for the least crumb of kindness you are willing to throw them. When you thought poor Charteris was dead, you luxuriated in misery with that very foolish young Gerrard, who ought to have given you the choice of taking him or leaving him there and then, and when Charteris came back, you snubbed him. And if Gerrard should be killed now, in trying to save my dear Charley, I suppose you and Charteris would mingle your tears over him. No, Charteris has more sense. He won't let himself be treated----
gpt
Oh, do you mean that Mr Gerrard is helping Mr Charteris? Sir Edmund did not mention him.
human
They are co-operating, Lady Antony told me--making forced marches in the hot weather, to avenge Charley if they can't save him. But you don't care--or if you do, it's only because you like to think you can be an inspiration to them without giving anything in return. You don't want to marry either of them, but you won't break with them so long as they are willing to dangle about you.
gpt
I don't want to marry either of them, it is true, but if they are willing to be my friends still, why should I break with them, as you call it?
human
Because each of them thinks that you will be willing to marry him one day, and you know it. You are rather proud of their constancy, and your own firmness in not yielding to either of them. But it is not a thing to be proud of; it is a thing to be ashamed of and sorry for. You could make far more of either of those men by coming down from your pedestal and marrying him in an ordinary everyday way than by standing up above him and giving him good advice. I know you have some delusion that it is better and higher to be as you are, but I tell you that I had rather have married my Charley and known him as he really was and--yes, and even lost him--than stood on high and given good advice to a whole army. Oh, Charley, my dear kind Charley--and I behaved so badly to you when you went away! I never kissed you!