"Not like grandfather, of course. But I should like a lover who would laugh and be gay. Uncle Anton is never gay. My lover shall be only two years older than myself. Uncle Anton must be twenty years older than you, Nina."
"Not more than ten — or twelve at the most."
"He is too old to laugh and dance."
"Not at all, dear; but he thinks of other things."
"I should like a lover to think of the things that I think about. It is all very well being steady when you have got babies of your own; but that should be after ever so long. I should like to keep my lover as a lover for two years. And all that time he should like to dance with me, and to hear music, and to go about just where I would like to go."
"And what then, Ruth?"
"Then? Why, then I suppose I should marry him, and become stupid like the rest. But I should have the two years to look back at and to remember. Do you think, Nina, that you will ever come and live here when you are married?"
"I do not know that I shall ever be married, Ruth."
"But you mean to marry uncle Anton?"
"I cannot say. It may be so."