m at all to
want what poor Mr. Pardon had wanted; he made her talk about her views
far more than that gentleman, but gave no sign of offering himself
either as a husband or as a lecture-agent. The furthest he had gone as
yet was to tell her that he liked her for the same reason that he liked
old enamels and old embroideries; and when she said that she didn't see
how she resembled such things, he had replied that it was because she
was so peculiar and so delicate. She might be peculiar, but she had
protested against the idea that she was delicate; it was the last thing
that she wanted to be thought; and Olive could see from this how far she
was from falling in with everything he said. When Miss Chancellor asked
if she respected Mr. Burrage (and how solemn Olive could make that word
she by this time knew), she answered, with her sweet, vain laugh, but
apparently with perfect good faith, that it didn't matter whether she
did or not, for what was the whole thing but simply a phase--the very
one they had talked about? The sooner she got through it the better, was
it not?--and she seemed to think that her transit would be materially
quickened by a visit to Mr. Burrage's rooms. As I say, Verena was
pleased to regard the phase as quite inevitable, and she had said more
than once to Olive that if their struggle was to be with men, the more
they knew about them the better. Miss Chancellor asked her why her
mother should not go with her to see the curiosities, since she
mentioned that their possessor had not neglected to invite Mrs. Tarrant;
and Verena said that this, of course, would be very simple--only her
mother wouldn't be able to tell her so well as Olive whether she ought
to respect Mr. Burrage. This decision as to whether Mr. Burrage should
be respected assumed in the life of these two remarkable young women,
pitched in so high a moral key, the proportions of a momentous event.
Olive shrank at first from facing it--not, indeed, the decision--for we
know that her own mind had long since been made up in regard to the
quantity of esteem due to almost any member of the other sex--but the
incident itself, which, if Mr. Burrage should exasperate her further,
might expose her to the danger of appearing to Verena to be unfair to
him. It was her belief that he was playing a deeper game than the young
Matthias, and she was very willing to watch him; but she thought it
prudent not to attempt to cut short the phase (she adopted that
cl