“That’s quite true. I wonder are there any exceptions to the rule?”
“Safely, no. People set one up for themselves and adore it; then crash—bang! some fine day they knock it down, and it shatters into smithereens. Then there is a pedestal empty—a pedestal to let.”
“And up goes another image, with like result,” laughed the girl.
“Precisely. But how cynical we are becoming. By the way, to go back to what I was saying a little while ago, you will probably not be coming up-country at all. Then we shall never see each other again.”
“Even then, why should we not?”
“Why? Why, because the chance that—that made us meet now is not likely to recur. That sort of blessed luck is not apt to duplicate in this vale of woe. Not much.”
She smiled, softly, tenderly. The self-contained John Ames was waxing vehement. His words were tumbling over each other. He could hardly get them out quick enough.
“And would you mind so very much if it did not?”
“Yes.”
“So would I.”