She flashed a slightly defiant look at him: it was clear to her that he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her beforehand.Lucy had said he was inclined to be satirical, and Maggie had mentally supplied the addition - `and rather conceited.'
`An alarming amount of devil there,' was Stephen's first thought.The second, when she had bent over her work was, `I wish she would look at me again.' The next was, to answer:
`I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be true.
A man is occasionally grateful when he says "thank you." It's rather hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world declines a disagreeable invitation - don't you think so, Miss Tulliver?'
`No,' said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance; `if we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners or everyday clothes hung up in a sacred place.'
`Then my compliment ought to be eloquent,' said Stephen, really not quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at him, `seeing that the words were so far beneath the occasion.'
`No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference,'
said Maggie, flushing a little.
Lucy was rather alarmed - she thought Stephen and Maggie were not going to like each other.She had always feared lest Maggie should appear too odd and clever to please that critical gentleman.`Why, dear Maggie,' she interposed, `you have always pretended that you are too fond of being admired, and now, I think, you are angry because some one ventures to admire you.'
`Not at all,' said Maggie, `I like too well to feel that I am admired, but compliments never make me feel that.'
`I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver,' said Stephen.
`Thank you; that will be a proof of respect.'
Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could take nothing as a matter of course, and had never in her life spoken from the lips merely, so that she must necessarily appear absurd to more experienced ladies, from the excessive feeling she was apt to throw into very trivial incidents.
But she was even conscious herself of a little absurdity in this instance.
It was true, she had a theoretic objection to compliments and had once said impatiently to Philip that she didn't see why women were to be told with a simper that they were beautiful any more than old men were to be told that they were venerable: still, to be so irritated by a common practice in the case of a stranger like Mr Stephen Guest, and to care about his having spoken slightingly of her before he had seen her, was certainly unreasonable, and as soon as she was silent she began to be ashamed of herself.It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emotion which had preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a sense of glowing warmth an innocent drop of cold water may fall upon us as a sudden smart.
Stephen was too well-bred not to seem unaware that the previous conversation could have been felt embarrassing, and at once began to talk of impersonal matters, asking Lucy if she knew when the bazaar was at length to take place, so that there might be some hope of seeing her rain the influence of her eyes on objects more grateful than those worsted flowers that were growing under her fingers.
`Some day next month, I believe,' said Lucy.`But your sisters are doing more for it than I am: they are to have the largest stall.'
`Ah, yes: but they carry on their manufactures in their own sitting-room where I don't intrude on them.I see you are not addicted to the fashionable vice of fancy-work, Miss Tulliver,' said Stephen looking at Maggie's plain hemming.
`No,' said Maggie, `I can do nothing more difficult or more elegant than shirt-making.'
`And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie,' said Lucy, `that Ithink I shall beg a few specimens of you to show as fancy-work.Your exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to me - you used to dislike that sort of work so much in old days.'
`It is a mystery explained, dear,' said Maggie, looking up quietly.
`Plain sewing was the only thing I could get money by; so I was obliged to try and do it well.'
Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing a little:
she did not quite like that Stephen should know that - Maggie need not have mentioned it.Perhaps there was some pride in the confession: the pride of poverty that will not be ashamed of itself.But if Maggie had been the queen of coquettes she could hardly have invented a means of giving greater piquancy to her beauty in Stephen's eyes: I am not sure that the quiet admission of plain sewing and poverty would have done alone, but assisted by the beauty, they made Maggie more unlike other women even than she had seemed at first.
`But I can knit, Lucy,' Maggie went on, `if that will be of any use for your bazaar.'
`O yes, of infinite use.I shall set you to work with scarlet wool tomorrow.
But your sister is the most enviable person,' continued Lucy, turning to Stephen, `to have the talent of modelling.She is doing a wondering bust of Dr Kenn entirely from memory.'
`Why, if she can remember to put the eyes very near together, and the corners of the mouth very far apart, the likeness can hardly fail to be striking in St Ogg's.'
`Now, that is very wicked of you,' said Lucy, looking rather hurt.`Ididn't think you would speak disrespectfully of Dr Kenn.'
