“Nonsense, Lieutenant!” said Sarah. “None of them are good. They all spoil your eyes, and seek to lay a curse on you; that is the confusion of languages.”
“Still, I might have learned Latin.”
“It was the speech of pagans and infidels.”
“Or logic.”
“Logic hath nothing to say in a good cause.”
“Or philosophy.”
“Philosophy is curiosity. Socrates was very properly put to death for it.”
They were all laughing together, when Sarah condemned Socrates, and the evening passed like a happy dream away.
It was succeeded by weeks of the same delight. Aspatria soon learned to love Sarah. She had never before had a 204 woman friend on whom she could rely and to whom she could open her heart. Sarah induced her to speak of Ulfar, to tell her all her suffering and her plans and hopes, and she gave her in return a true affection and a most sincere sympathy. Nothing of the past that referred to Ulfar was left untold; and as the two women sat together during the long summer days, they grew very near to each other, and there was but one mind and one desire between them.
So that when the time came for Aspatria to go back to Mrs. St. Alban’s, Sarah would not hear of their separation. “You have had enough of book-learning,” she said. “Remain with me. We will go to Paris, to Rome, to Vienna. We will study through travel and society. It is by rubbing yourself against all kinds of men and women that you acquire the finest polish of life; and then when Ulfar comes back you will be able to meet him upon all civilized grounds. And as for the South Americans, we will buy all the books 205 about them we can find. Are they red or white or black, I wonder? Are they pagans or Christians? I seem to remember that when I was at school I learned that the Peruvians worshipped the sun.”