But her mother's vehemence was still too great to be thrown back by salutary truths.
"Yes; that's just it; we were different. It was that that seemed to shut me out. You were with him—against me. And I'm not asking for any change in you; I don't think that I expect any change in myself,—I am not asking for any place in your heart that is his, dear child; I know that that can't be, should not be. But people can be different, and yet near. They can be different and yet love each other very much. That's all I want—that you should see how I care for you and trust me."
"I do trust you, darling mama. I do see that you are warm-hearted, full of kind impulses. But I think that your life is confused, uncertain of any goal. If you are to be near me in the way you crave, you must change. And we can, dear, with faith and effort. When you have found yourself, found a goal, I shall feel you near."
"Ah, but don't be so over-logical, dear child. You're my goal!" Valerie smiled and appealed at once.
Imogen, though smiling gravely too, shook her head. "I'm afraid that I'm only your last toy, mama darling. You have come over here to see if you can make me happy, just as if you were refurnishing a house. But, you see, my happiness doesn't depend on you."
"You are hard on me, Imogen."
"No; no; I mean to be so gentle. It's such a dangerous view of life—that centering it on some one else, making them an end. I feel so differently about life. I think that our love for others is only sound and true when it helps them to power of service to some shared ideal. Your love for me isn't like that. It's only an instinctive craving. Forgive me if I seem ruthless. I only want to help you to see clearly, dear."
Valerie, still holding her daughter's hands, looked away from her and around the room with a glance at once vague and a little wild.
"I don't know what to say to you," she murmured. "You make all that I mean wither." She was sad; her ardor had dropped from her. She was not at all convicted of error; indeed, she was trying, so it seemed, to convict her, Imogen, of one.
Imogen felt a cold resistance rising within her to meet this misinterpretation. "On the contrary, dear," she said, "it is just the poetry, the reality of life, in all its stern glory,—because it is and must be stern if it is to be spiritual,—it is just that, it seems to me, that you are trying to reduce to a sort of pretty, facile lyric."