She saw clearly that but for his love for the child—and that, she knew, was genuine—he would not have come to the house at all. She felt that all the while he spoke to her courteously and politely, he was suspicious of her. She showed nothing of her indignation; that would only have been acknowledgment of the hit.
Suspicious of what? She asked herself; asked not once, but a hundred times a day. Her pride would not allow her to put the question to him; so they drifted further and further apart. To her it seemed as with Ichabod: the glory had departed.
Sorry? She was heart-broken over it. She had not learned to love him: she had cared for him all along. More even than she had known, more than she knew even now. The sweet, helpful gentleness of his care for her child when sick, had shown him in a light in which few women would have failed to admire—nay, more than that: to love him.
He was a veritable Prince to her; she could have worshipped him. Her soul had gone out to him—and his to her—so naturally she had scarce noticed its passage. She felt she had known him all her life; so perfectly their thoughts and views seemed to dovetail one another.
There had been no shaping and moulding and rubbing off of corners; no making of rough edges to fit evenly; all that is usually the work of time. It is said that there is no soul but somewhere on this crowded earth another soul responds unto its needs. The meeting is still a rarity, but kindly old Time goes on with his everlasting pruning and polishing and planing down to suit mutual requirements.
He has them—has the man with the scythe and hour glass—in his workshop; hundreds and thousands of young couples. He lets them rub along together, Fate having joined them, until the roughnesses are all worn away and it is scarcely noticeable—certainly not by the young people themselves—that they were not expressly made for each other.
The manufactured article produced in that workshop of Old Time is durable and generally gives satisfaction. Looks so much like the real thing that most people want nothing better. Some people prefer it even, take more pride in it.
Besides, the Merchandise Marks Act is not in force in regard to this particular class of goods, so there is not much loss. It all bears the same label, and there is no penalty for deceiving the public. It is all marked—hall marked: Love.
Sometimes, however, it happens that two souls come together whom Nature has really designed and moulded each to each. It is fraught with much sweetness, such a meeting; sweetness as of music. The harmonies are so perfect and so pure, it seems no power in Heaven or Earth could destroy the enduring melody by a jarring note.
The swelling tones would rise and fall and echo, long after the discordance had subsided. Real love is very rare, rarer than gold and diamonds, but it is found sometimes. In out-of-the-way places, too; wholly unsought, conjoining the hearts of man and woman by the closeness and perfection of their union and coincidence.