"Why, just think of it for a moment," Sophy answered. "If the Serpent hadn't interrupted their tête-à-tête—there they would be to this day—wandering love-sick among fadeless flowers, with nothing, nothing, nothing before them but an eternity of love-making!" Her pale face alight with mingled whimsicality and sadness, she added, leaning closer: "Sue ... I'll whisper you something.... The Serpent was Jehovah in disguise, Sue!"
A second later she said:
"Don't be vexed, dear, will you?... It's such a comfort thinking aloud to you like this...."
"No, indeed. Go on. I won't be vexed," Miss Pickett assured her warmly. "You always were an irreverent monkey—but then the Lord made monkeys. He knows how to allow for their antics."
But Sophy was intent upon her own train of thought again and only smiled absently at this indirect reproof.
"Two lessons...." she then said slowly. "It took two bitter lessons to teach me the truth about love—the sort of love that I always dreamed of as supreme—the love that is 'like an Archangel beating his iridescent wings in the void'...."
Miss Pickett could not follow the subtleties of Sophy's musing, she could only feel the pain that underlay it. She said gently:
"You mustn't deny love, honey, just because it's failed you. I don't ever want to see my child grow bitter."
"It's only one kind of love that I'm denying, Sue—not Eros, but Anteros ... the false god.... He comes in a lovely glamour. He's the rainbow on the foam of breaking waves. When the sea is still he vanishes. My bitterness is only against myself—for having worshipped a false god."
"Well, child—maybe you have. But thank the Lord! no mistake is final at your age...."