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

long look from Maggie; and he was racking his invention continually to find out some means by which he could have it without its appearing singular and entailing subsequent embarrassment. As for Maggie, she had no distinct thought, only the sense of a presence like that of a closely hovering broad-winged bird in the darkness, for she was unable to look up, and saw nothing but Minny’s black wavy coat.

But this must end some time, perhaps it ended very soon, and only seemed long, as a minute’s dream does. Stephen at last sat upright sideways in his chair, leaning one hand and arm over the back and looking at Maggie. What should he say?

“We shall have a splendid sunset, I think; shan’t you go out and see it?”

“I don’t know,” said Maggie. Then courageously raising her eyes and looking out of the window, “if I’m not playing cribbage with my uncle.”

A pause; during which Minny is stroked again, but has sufficient insight not to be grateful for it, to growl rather.

“Do you like sitting alone?”

A rather arch look came over Maggie’s face, and, just glancing at Stephen, she said, “Would it be quite civil to say ‘yes’?”

“It was rather a dangerous question for an intruder to ask,” said Stephen, delighted with that glance, and getting determined to stay for another. “But you will have more than half an hour to yourself after I am gone,” he added, taking out his watch. “I know Mr. Deane never comes in till half-past seven.”

Another pause, during which Maggie looked steadily out of the window, till by a great effort she moved her head to look down at Minny’s back again, and said⁠—

“I wish Lucy had not been obliged to go out. We lose our music.”

“We shall have a new voice tomorrow night,” said Stephen. “Will you tell your cousin that our friend Philip Wakem is come back? I saw him as I went home.”

Maggie gave a little start⁠—it seemed hardly more than a vibration that passed from head to foot in an instant. But the new images summoned by Philip’s name dispersed half the oppressive spell she had been under. She rose from her chair with a sudden resolution, and laying Minny on his cushion, went to reach Lucy’s large workbasket from its corner. Stephen was vexed and disappointed; he thought perhaps Maggie didn’t like the name of Wakem to be mentioned to her in that abrupt way, for he now recalled what Lucy had told him of the family quarrel. It was of no use to stay any longer. Maggie was seating herself at the table with her work, and looking chill and proud; and he⁠—he looked like a simpleton for having come. A gratuitous, entirely superfluous visit of that sort was sure to make a man disagreeable and ridiculous. Of course it was palpable to Maggie’s thinking that he had dined hastily in his own room for the sake of setting off again and finding her alone.

A boyish state of mind for an accomplished young gentleman of five-and-twenty, not without legal knowledge! But a reference to history, perhaps, may make it not incredible.

At this moment Maggie’s ball of knitting-wool rolled along the ground, and she started up to reach it. Stephen rose too, and picking up the ball, met her with a vexed, complaining look that gave his eyes quite a new expression to Maggie, whose own eyes met them as he presented the ball to her.

“Goodbye,” said Stephen, in a tone that had the same beseeching discontent as his eyes. He dared not put out his hand; he thrust both hands into his tail-pockets as he spoke. Maggie thought she had perhaps been rude.

“Won’t you stay?” she said timidly, not looking away, for that would have seemed rude again.

“No, thank you,” said Stephen, looking still into the half-unwilling, half-fascinated eyes, as a thirsty man looks toward the track of the distant brook. “The boat is waiting for me. You’ll tell your cousin?”

“Yes.”

“That I brought the music, I mean?”

“Yes.”

“And that Philip is come back?”

“Yes.” (Maggie did not notice Philip’s name this time.)

“Won’t you come out a little way into the garden?” said Stephen, in a still gentler tone; but the next moment he was vexed that she did not say “No,” for she moved away now toward the open window, and he was obliged to take his hat and walk by her side. But he thought of something to make him amends.

“Do take my arm,” he said, in a low tone, as if it were a secret.

There is something strangely winning to most women in that offer of the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but the sense of help, the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs, meets a continual want of the imagination. Either on that ground or some other, Maggie took the arm. And they walked together round the grassplot and under the drooping green of the laburnums, in the same dim, dreamy state as they had been in a quarter of an hour before; only that Stephen had had the look he longed for, without yet perceiving in himself the symptoms of returning reasonableness, and Maggie had darting thoughts across the dimness⁠—how came he to be there? Why had she come out? Not a word was spoken. If it had been, each would have been less intensely conscious of the other.

“Take care of this step,” said Stephen at last.

“Oh, I will go in now,” said Maggie, feeling that the step had come like a rescue. “Good evening.”

In an instant she had withdrawn her arm, and was running back to the house. She did not reflect that this sudden action would only add to the embarrassing recollections of the last half-hour. She had no thought left for that. She only threw herself into the low armchair, and burst into tears.

“Oh, Philip, Philip, I wish we were together again⁠—so quietly⁠—in the Red Deeps.”

Stephen looked after her a moment, then went on to