"Oh, but it wouldn't be stealing. When two people love each other there's nothing else to think about."
"And yet that might sometimes be dangerous doctrine."
"If there was never any danger there'd never be any courage. And courage is one of the finest things in life."
"Yes, of course; but even courage can carry one very far."
"Nothing can carry us so far as love. I see that now. It's why I'm anxious about poor Hugh. I—I know a man who—who loves a woman whom he—he couldn't marry, and—" She caught herself up. "I'm fond of Hugh, you see, even though he doesn't like me. I wish he understood, that they all understood—that—that it isn't my fault. If I could have had my way—" She righted herself here with a slight change of tense. "If I could have my way, Hugh would marry the woman he's in love with and who's in love with him."
I tried to enroll her decisively on my side.
"So that you don't agree with Mr. Brokenshire."
Her immediate response was to color with a soft, suffused rose-pink like that of the inside of shells. Her eyes grew misty with a kind of helplessness. She looked at me imploringly, and looked away. One might have supposed that she was pleading with me to be let off answering. Nevertheless, when she spoke at last, her words brought me to a new phase of her self-revelation.
"Why aren't you afraid of him?"
"Oh, but I am."