'_You_ would never weep, whatever ailed ye. Oh, thou'rt a proud incomprehensible little maid. I would like to see thee well in love.'
'Never boast. It is a sign of weakness, Mistress mine. But is there a doubt that Charlie Fleming would _not_ love one so charming as May? Were I a man, I would worship her; and it is such bold spirits as his that love the soft and tender. Charlie _will not_ woo; he looks askance to _be_ wooed, and would love the maiden wooer! _I_ know Charlie Fleming.'
'Then if he loves to be wooed,' said Mistress Dinnage, with a fierce scorn, 'let him seek it in the streets of Granta; fair enough women there, and ready too. I thought not that Master Fleming would love such kind!'
Deborah withdrew her arm from her companion's, and answered coldly: 'You offend me. You wilfully misunderstand me. But how can I look to be understood by one who knows no softness, no weakness of her sex! You have a hard, hard heart, Mistress Dinnage, if it be a noble one. The good _you_ do is never done for love.'
'True enow, good sooth. But such poor love as ye describe, defend me from! It is water and milk at best. If God made me love, my love would lie so deep that the man who would win it must dig and dig to find it. Ay, hard!'
'Proud Mistress mine, do you value yourself thus highly?'
'Ay, I am a poor girl; but I have an honest heart, Mistress Fleming, and value it as highly as any lady in the land. He who loves, but thinks it not worth the winning, let him go; he who sets not such store by my love, let him go; and if the right man never comes, let the others go! If Margaret Dinnage could have loved, it would have been thus with her; and the hidden unvalued love would live and die within one heart.'
'I know it, I know it!' cried Deborah impulsively. 'O noble heart! _this_ is the kind of love I can feel for, for I have it beating here;' and Deborah laid her hand upon her own breast. 'One thing you lack, Meg--that would make you perfect. _Love!_' Pleading, earnest, sweet, significant, tender, emphatic, was the utterance of the last imperative word, and Deborah's arms were round her friend, and her upturned face upon Margaret's breast. So in the moonlight the girls stood: a fair picture, for the head of Mistress Dinnage was turned aside, and her grave dark eyes averted; and in that moment each proud heart was revealed to each. '_Let_ thyself love,' continued Deborah, in her sweetest softest tones. 'Ye can be _too_ proud, Mistress Dinnage. The day will come when ye will rue it bitterly. I would not urge ye, if I divined not the secret of another heart. Are you so blind that ye cannot see it too? The restlessness when you're not by; the wistful eye--that _I_ dare not answer! O Mistress Dinnage, if Kingston Fleming had had _one_ such look for me, in those old days, child as I was, I would have loved him before all the world, truly and unchangeably. Know ye not that I speak the truth? Would I urge ye to your ruin? When once a Fleming loves, he never loves but honourably. Then, his fate is not in _my_ hands--but in thine.' There was silence. The last three words, though whispered, rang again and again in the listener's ears like music. What Mistress Dinnage thought then, was not told, but Deborah felt the wild heaving of her breast.