“No, May’s out,” said her father. “She is always doing something.”
“But what can she find to do here?” asked Tom, divided between his desire to loiter and his wish to run away.
“She’s always visiting these poor folks,” said Mr. Markham. “She spends half her day among them. Very nipping weather,” and he stirred the fire.
“I see,” said Tom; “how awfully good of her! Well, I must go. I shall skate this afternoon. Really it would be a pity to waste such a lovely bit of ice. Gibson says it’s quite splendid.”
“Many thanks. I dare say one or both of us will come. It’s a pity Ted’s not here. He’s so fond of it. Good-bye. Mind you take me at my word about the Aristophanes.”
Tom lingered and loitered through the village, ordered a bookshelf which he did not want from the carpenter, in case of May being there, and some bad and unnecessary tobacco from the village store, but saw her not. But there were the prospects of the afternoon and the Aristophanes lessons to fall back on.
So through the quiet country weeks their two young lives flowed inevitably towards each other, like two streams which, rising on distant ranges of hills, yet must some day meet in the valley between them. Though their natures sprang from widely distant sources, it was inevitable they would some time join.
But to continue the metaphor, the bed over which Tom’s stream flowed was a bright gravelly soil, on which the water danced gaily and light-heartedly down to the valley, pursuing a straight swift course, whereas May had many rocks and sandy places to get over, and, what was worse, she could not understand, and half rebelled against, the course her stream seemed to be taking. The traditions in which she had been brought up had become part of her nature; for her, she thought, was the sheltered life, busy in little deeds of love, in caring for her own corner of the world, and bringing it nearer to God, and when at first the stream began to flow in this unconjectured direction, she was bewildered, almost frightened. Was there anything in this world so certain as her own duty? Could anything rightly come between her and this other life she had planned and dedicated humbly and gratefully to God? What call was there so clear as that still small voice which said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least, ye have done it unto me?” And when she had come to argue about it, even to herself, the end was already inevitable. As soon as a moral question becomes a thing to argue about, it is already without force. No argument will convince a man that it is better being good than bad; it is a matter, not for dispute, but of knowledge, and the man who disputes about it is bad.