Maggie had not heard a word he had said - she was absorbed in a page at which she had opened.But suddenly she closed the book, and gave it back to Philip shaking her head with a backward movement, as if to say `avaunt' to floating visions.
`Do keep it, Maggie,' said Philip, entreatingly, `it will give you pleasure.'
`No, thank you,' said Maggie, putting it aside with her hand and walking on.`It would make me in love with this world again, as I used to be; it would make me long to see and know many things - it would make me long for a full life.'
`But you will not always be shut up in your present lot: why should you starve your mind in that way? It is narrow asceticism - I don't like to see you persisting in it, Maggie.Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure.'
`But not for me - not for me,' said Maggie, walking more hurriedly.
`Because I should want too much.I must wait - this life will not last long.'
`Don't hurry away from me without saying "good by," Maggie,' said Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs, and she continued still to walk along without speaking.`I must not go any farther, I think, must I?'
`O no, I forgot; goodby,' said Maggie, pausing and putting out her hand to him.The action brought her feeling back in a strong current to Philip, and after they had stood looking at each other in silence for a few moments, with their hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her hand, `I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years.It is very sweet to have people love us.What a wonderful, beautiful thing it seems that God should have made your heart so that you could care about a queer little girl whom you only knew for a few weeks.I remember saying to you, that I thought you cared for me more than Tom did.'
`Ah, Maggie,' said Philip, almost fretfully, `you would never love me so well as you love your brother.'
`Perhaps not,' said Maggie, simply, `but then, you know, the first thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of the Floss while he held my hand - everything before that is dark to me.But I shall never forget you - though we must keep apart.'
`Don't say so, Maggie,' said Philip.`If I kept that little girl in my mind for five years, didn't I earn some part in her? She ought not to take herself quite away from me.'
`Not if I were free,' said Maggie, `but I am not - I must submit.' She hesitated a moment and then added, `And I wanted to say to you, that you had better not take more notice of my brother than just bowing to him.
He once told me not to speak to you again, and he doesn't change his mind...
O dear, the sun is set.I am too long away.Good by.' She gave him her hand once more.
`I shall come here as often as I can till I see you again, Maggie.-Have some feeling for me , as well as for others.'
`Yes, yes, I have,' said Maggie, hurrying away, and quickly disappearing behind the last fir-tree; though Philip's gaze after her remained immovable for minutes, as if he saw her still.
Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun; Philip went home to do nothing but remember and hope.You can hardly help blaming him severely.He was four or five years older than Maggie, and had a full consciousness of his feeling towards her to aid him in foreseeing the character his contemplated interviews with her would bear in the opinion of a third person.But you must not suppose that he was capable of a gross selfishness, or that he could have been satisfied without persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse some happiness into Maggie's life - seeking this even more than any direct ends for himself.He could give her sympathy - he could give her help.There was not the slightest promise of love towards him in her manner; it was nothing more than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown him when she was twelve: perhaps, she would never love him - perhaps no woman ever could love him: well, then, he would endure that - he should at least have the happiness of seeing her - of feeling some nearness to her.And he clutched passionately the possibility, that she might love him: perhaps the feeling would grow, if she could come to associate him with that watchful tenderness, which her nature would be so keenly alive to.If any woman could love him - surely Maggie was that woman: there was such wealth of love in her, and there was no one to claim it all.Then - the pity of it that a mind like hers should be withering in its very youth, like a young forest tree, for want of the light and space it was formed to flourish in! Could he not hinder that, by persuading her out of her system of privation? He would be her guardian angel; he would do anything bear anything for her sake - except not seeing her.
