rally
see other singers, especially as she is very much liked by them. I only
tell you that to explain why I know so much about them; and if I want
to explain at all, it's only because I like you so much, and because I
suppose that what I like most about you, next to yourself, is just that
something which my dear old friend can never have. Do you understand?'

Lushington was certainly very shy as a rule, and most people would have
said that he was very cold; but Margaret suddenly felt that there was a
true and deep emotion behind his plain speech.

'You have been very fond of her,' she said gently.

He flushed almost before she had finished speaking; but he could not
have been angry, for he smiled.

'Yes, I have always been very fond of her,' he answered, after a
scarcely perceptible pause, 'and I always shall be. But she is old
enough to be my mother.'

'I'm glad if it's really a friendship,' said Margaret; 'and only a
friendship,' she added.

He turned his eyes to her rather slowly.

'I believe you really are glad,' he answered. 'Thank you. I'm very fond
of you. I can't help it. I suppose I love you, and I have no business
to--and sometimes you say things that touch me. That's all.

After this rather inexplicable speech he relapsed into silence. But
there are silences of all sorts, as there is speech of all sorts. There
are silences that set one's teeth on edge--it is always a relief to
break them; and there are silences that are gentler, kinder, sweeter,
more loving, more eloquent than any words, and which it is always a
wrench to interrupt. Of these was the pause that followed now; but
Margaret was asking herself what he meant by saying that he had no
right to love her.

'Do you know what the hardest thing in my life is?' Lushington asked,
suddenly rousing himself. 'It is the certainty that my friend can never
have been and never can be at all like you in everything that appeals
to me most. But it would be still worse--oh, infinitely worse!--to see
you grow like her, by living amongst the same people. You will suffer
if you do, and you will suffer if you cannot. That is why I dread the
idea of your going on the stage.'

'But I really think I shall not change so much as you think, if I do,'
Margaret said.

'You don't know the life,' Lushington answered rather sadly. 'All I can
do is to tell you that it is not fit for you, or that you are not fit
for it, because you are not by nature what most of them ar