Grace burst into the room where her mother sat; and flung her hat aside with a desperate gesture. "Now, mother, you have -got to listen to me.
Dr. Mulbridge has asked me to marry him!"
Mrs. Green put up her spectacles on her forehead, and stared at her daughter, while some strong expressions, out of the plebeian or rustic past which lies only a generation or two behind most of us, rose to her lips. I will not repeat them here; she had long denied them to herself as an immoral self-indulgence, and it must be owned that such things have a fearful effect, coming from old ladies. "What has got into all the men? What in nature does he want you to marry him for?"
"Oh, for the best reasons in the world," exclaimed the daughter. "For reasons that will make you admire and respect him," she added ironically.
"For great, and unselfish, and magnanimous reasons!"
"I should want to believe they were the real ones, first," interrupted Mrs. Breen.
"He wants to marry me because he knows that I can't fulfil my plans of life alone, and because we could fulfil them together. We shall not only be husband and wife, but we shall be physicians in partnership. I may continue a homoeopath, he says, and the State Medical Association may go to the devil." She used his language, that would have been shocking to her ordinary moods, without blenching, and in their common agitation her mother accepted it as fit and becoming. "He counts upon my accepting him because I must see it as my duty, and my conscience won't let me reject the only opportunity I shall have of doing some good and being of some use in the world. What do you think I ought to do, mother?"
"There's reason in what he says. It is an opportunity. You could be of use, in that way, and perhaps it's the only way. Yes," she continued, fascinated by the logic of the position, and its capabilities for vicarious self-sacrifice. "I don't see how you can get out of it: You have spent years and years of study, and a great deal of money, to educate yourself for a profession that you're too weak to practise alone.
"You can't say that I ever advised your doing it. It was your own idea, and I did n't oppose it. But when you've gone so far, you've formed an obligation to go on. It's your duty not to give up, if you know of any means to continue. That's your duty, as plain as can be. To say nothing of the wicked waste of your giving up now, you're bound to consider the effect it would have upon other women who are trying to do something for themselves. The only thing," she added, with some misgiving, "is whether you believe he was in earnest and would keep his word to you."
"I think he was secretly laughing at me, and that he would expect to laugh me out of his promise."
"Well, then, you ought to take time to reflect, and you ought to be sure that you're right about him."
"Is that what you really think, mother?"
"I am always governed by reason, Grace, and by right; and I have brought you up on that plan. If you have ever departed from it, it has not been with my consent, nor for want of my warning. I have simply laid the matter before you."
"Then you wish me to marry him?"
This was perhaps a point that had not occurred to Mrs. Breen in her recognition of the strength of Dr. Mulbridge's position. It was one thing to trace the path of duty; another to support the aspirant in treading it. "You ought to take time to reflect," Mrs. Green repeated, with evasion that she never used in behalf of others.
"Well, mother," answered Grace," I didn't take time to reflect, and I should n't care whether I was right about him or not. I refused him because I did n't love him. If I had loved him that would have been the only reason I needed to marry him. But all the duty in the world wouldn't be enough without it. Duty? I am sick of duty! Let the other women who are trying to do something for themselves, take care of themselves as men would. I don't owe them more than a man would owe other men, and I won't be hoodwinked into thinking I do. As for the waste, the past is gone, at any rate; and the waste that I lament is the years I spent in working myself up to an undertaking that I was never fit for. I won't continue that waste, and I won't keep up the delusion that because I was very unhappy I was useful, and that it was doing good to be miserable. I like pleasure and I like dress; I like pretty things.
There is no harm in them. Why should n't I have them?"
"There is harm in them for you,"--her mother began.
"Because I have tried to make my life a horror ? There is no other reason, and that is no reason. When we go into Boston this winter I shall go to the theatre. I shall go to the opera,, and I hope there will be a ballet. And next summer, I am going to Europe; I am going to Italy." She whirled away toward the door as if she were setting out.
"I should think you had taken leave of your conscience!" cried her mother.
"I hope I have, mother. I am going to consult my reason after this."
"Your reason!"
"Well, then, my inclination. I have had enough of conscience,--of my own, and of yours, too. That is what I told him, and that is what I mean. There is such a thing as having too much conscience, and of getting stupefied by it, so that you can't really see what's right. But I don't care. I believe I should like to do wrong for a while, and I will do wrong if it's doing right to marry him."
She had her hand on the door-knob, and now she opened the door, and closed it after her with something very like a bang.
She naturally could not keep within doors in this explosive state, and she went downstairs, and out upon the piazza. Mr. Maynard was there, smoking, with his boots on top of the veranda-rail, and his person thrown back in his chair at the angle requisite to accomplish this elevation of the feet. He took them down, as he saw her approach, and rose, with the respect in which he never failed for women, and threw his cigar away.
"Mr. Maynard," she asked abruptly, "do you know where Mr. Libby is?"
