`Better than any sort of locomotion, I hope you mean,' said Philip, smiling at Maggie, who was lolling backward in a low garden chair, `else she will be selling her soul to that ghostly boatman who haunts the Floss - only for the sake of being drifted in a boat for ever.'
`Should you like to be her boatman?' said Lucy.`Because, if you would, you can come with us and take an oar.If the Floss were but a quiet lake instead of a river, we should be independent of any gentleman, for Maggie can row splendidly.As it is, we are reduced to ask services of knights and squires, who do not seem to offer them with great alacrity.'
She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was sauntering up and down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto `The thirst that from the soul doth rise, Doth ask a drink divine.' He took no notice, but still kept aloof: he had done so frequently during Philip's recent visits.
`You don't seem inclined for boating,' said Lucy, when he came to sit down by her on the bench.`Doesn't rowing suit you now?'
`O, I hate a large party in a boat,' he said, almost irritably.`I'll come when you have no one else.'
Lucy coloured, fearing that Philip would be hurt: it was quite a new thing for Stephen to speak in that way, but he had certainly not been well of late.Philip coloured too, but less from a feeling of personal offence than from a vague suspicion that Stephen's moodiness had some relation to Maggie, who had started up from her chair as he spoke, and had walked towards the hedge of laurels to look at the descending sunlight on the river.
`As Miss Deane didn't know she was excluding others by inviting me,'
said Philip, `I am bound to resign.'
`No, indeed, you shall not,' said Lucy, much vexed.`I particularly wish for your company tomorrow.The tide will suit at half-past ten - it will be a delicious time for a couple of hours to row to Luckreth and walk back, before the sun gets too hot.And how can you object to four people in a boat?' she added, looking at Stephen.
`I don't object to the people, but the number,' said Stephen, who had recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his rudeness.`If I voted for a fourth at all, of course it would be you, Phil.But we won't divide the pleasure of escorting the ladies - we'll take it alternately.I'll go the next day.'
This incident had the effect of drawing Philip's attention with freshened solicitude towards Stephen and Maggie; but when they re-entered the house, music was proposed, and Mrs Tulliver and Mr Deane being occupied with cribbage, Maggie sat apart near the table where the books and work were placed -doing nothing, however, but listening abstractedly to the music.Stephen presently turned to a duet which he insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing: he had often done the same thing before, but this evening Philip thought he divined some double intention in every word and look of Stephen's, and watched him keenly - angry with himself all the while for this clinging suspicion.For had not Maggie virtually denied any ground for his doubts on her side? and she was truth itself; it was impossible not to believe her word and glance when they had last spoken together in the garden.Stephen might be strongly fascinated by her (what was more natural?), but Philip felt himself rather base for intruding on what must be his friend's painful secret.Still, he watched.Stephen, moving away from the piano, sauntered slowly towards the table near which Maggie sat, and turned over the newspapers, apparently in mere idleness.Then he seated himself with his back to the piano, dragging a newspaper under his elbow and thrusting his hand through his hair, as if he had been attracted by some bit of local news in the Laceham Courier.He was in reality looking at Maggie, who had not taken the slightest notice of his approach.She had always additional strength of resistance when Philip was present, just as we can restrain our speech better in a spot that we feel to be hallowed.But at last she heard the word `dearest', uttered in the softest tone of pained entreaty, like that of a patient who asks for something that ought to have been given without asking.She had never heard that word since the moments in the lane at Basset, when it had come from Stephen again and again, almost as involuntarily as if it had been an inarticulate cry.Philip could hear no word, but he had moved to the opposite side of the piano, and could see Maggie start and blush, raise her eyes an instant towards Stephen's face, but immediately look apprehensively towards himself.It was not evident to her that Philip had observed her, but a pang of shame under the sense of this concealment made her move from her chair and walk to her mother's side to watch the game at cribbage.
Philip went home soon after in a state of hideous doubt mingled with wretched certainty.It was impossible for him now to resist the conviction that there was some mutual consciousness between Stephen and Maggie; and for half the night his irritable, susceptible nerves were pressed upon almost to frenzy by that one wretched fact: he could attempt no explanation that would reconcile it with her words and actions.When, at last, the need for belief in Maggie rose to its habitual predominance, he was not long in imagining the truth: - she was struggling, she was banishing herself - this was the clue to all he had seen since his return.But athwart that belief, there came other possibilities that would not be driven out of sight.His imagination wrought out the whole story: Stephen was madly in love with her; he must have told her so; she had rejected him, and was hurrying away.But would he give her up, knowing - Philip felt the fact with heart-crushing despair - that she was made half helpless by her feeling towards him?
When the morning came, Philip was too ill to think of keeping his engagement to go in the boat.In his present agitation he could decide on nothing: