The Mill on the Floss George Eliot (ereader android .txt) 📖

Stephen could not conceal his astonishment at the sight of this tall, dark-eyed nymph with her jet-black coronet of hair; the next, Maggie felt herself, for the first time in her life, receiving the tribute of a very deep blush and a very deep bow from a person toward whom she herself was conscious of timidity.

This new experience was very agreeable to her, so agreeable that it almost effaced her previous emotion about Philip. There was a new brightness in her eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek, as she seated herself.

“I hope you perceive what a striking likeness you drew the day before yesterday,” said Lucy, with a pretty laugh of triumph. She enjoyed her lover’s confusion; the advantage was usually on his side.

“This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss Tulliver,” said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy, and stooping to play with Minny, only looking at Maggie furtively. “She said you had light hair and blue eyes.”

“Nay, it was you who said so,” remonstrated Lucy. “I only refrained from destroying your confidence in your own second-sight.”

“I wish I could always err in the same way,” said Stephen, “and find reality so much more beautiful than my preconceptions.”

“Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion,” said Maggie, “and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the circumstances.”

She flashed a slightly defiant look at him; it was clear to her that he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her beforehand. Lucy had said he was inclined to be satirical, and Maggie had mentally supplied the addition, “and rather conceited.”

“An alarming amount of devil there,” was Stephen’s first thought. The second, when she had bent over her work, was, “I wish she would look at me again.” The next was to answer⁠—

“I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be true. A man is occasionally grateful when he says ‘Thank you.’ It’s rather hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world declines a disagreeable invitation, don’t you think so, Miss Tulliver?”

“No,” said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance; “if we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place.”

“Then my compliment ought to be eloquent,” said Stephen, really not quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at him, “seeing that the words were so far beneath the occasion.”

“No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference,” said Maggie, flushing a little.

Lucy was rather alarmed; she thought Stephen and Maggie were not going to like each other. She had always feared lest Maggie should appear too old and clever to please that critical gentleman. “Why, dear Maggie,” she interposed, “you have always pretended that you are too fond of being admired; and now, I think, you are angry because someone ventures to admire you.”

“Not at all,” said Maggie; “I like too well to feel that I am admired, but compliments never make me feel that.”

“I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver,” said Stephen.

“Thank you; that will be a proof of respect.”

Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could take nothing as a matter of course, and had never in her life spoken from the lips merely, so that she must necessarily appear absurd to more experienced ladies, from the excessive feeling she was apt to throw into very trivial incidents. But she was even conscious herself of a little absurdity in this instance. It was true she had a theoretic objection to compliments, and had once said impatiently to Philip that she didn’t see why women were to be told with a simper that they were beautiful, any more than old men were to be told that they were venerable; still, to be so irritated by a common practice in the case of a stranger like Mr. Stephen Guest, and to care about his having spoken slightingly of her before he had seen her, was certainly unreasonable, and as soon as she was silent she began to be ashamed of herself. It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emotion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a sense of glowing warmth an innocent drop of cold water may fall upon us as a sudden smart.

Stephen was too well bred not to seem unaware that the previous conversation could have been felt embarrassing, and at once began to talk of impersonal matters, asking Lucy if she knew when the bazaar was at length to take place, so that there might be some hope of seeing her rain the influence of her eyes on objects more grateful than those worsted flowers that were growing under her fingers.

“Some day next month, I believe,” said Lucy. “But your sisters are doing more for it than I am; they are to have the largest stall.”

“Ah yes; but they carry on their manufactures in their own sitting-room, where I don’t intrude on them. I see you are not addicted to the fashionable vice of fancywork, Miss Tulliver,” said Stephen, looking at Maggie’s plain hemming.

“No,” said Maggie, “I can do nothing more difficult or more elegant than shirt-making.”

“And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie,” said Lucy, “that I think I shall beg a few specimens of you to show as fancywork. Your exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to me, you used to dislike that sort of work so much in old days.”

“It is a mystery easily explained, dear,” said Maggie, looking up quietly. “Plain sewing was the only thing I could get money by, so I was obliged to try and do it well.”

Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing a little. She did not quite like that Stephen should know that; Maggie need not have mentioned it. Perhaps