"How you have always got what you wanted in your life, haven't you—one way or another?"
"Life wouldn't be worth living if one didn't."
"Oh, it's not much good saying to you that that's a selfish way of looking at life. But you've never had any lessons, and I suppose you never will have. You'll go on getting what you want, and taking it for granted that you ought to get it, till the end."
"I hope so, sincerely," said Val, without shame. "But I shan't get one of the things I want most, unless you promise to write to me."
She shook her head. "I can't promise that. I wouldn't if I could. As for getting your news, I shall read it in the papers, which are sure to chronicle all Lord Loveland does and says, and a lot he doesn't do or say. The Louisville papers will have things about you, copied from New York, in the Sunday editions. Yes, I shall be able to read about you every Sunday—lots of things you wouldn't tell in letters if I let you write. I shall see rumours of your engagement, then an announcement. I wonder if it will be the survival of the prettiest; Miss Coolidge—or if you'll be knocked down—on your knees—to a higher bid?"
"You're not letting me get much pleasure out of my last moments with you," he complained, his blue eyes really pathetic. "Do you despise me, after all?"
She looked up at him. "Only one side of you," she answered, a little sadly. "But—you're rather like the moon. We see only one of her sides. The other we have to take on faith. Perhaps it's silly of me, yet sometimes—in some moods—I do take your other side on faith."
"What is there,—on that side?" he asked, eagerly.
"I don't know. And I'm sure you don't. You probably never will. For the light shines so brightly on the one turned towards the world. Now it must be 'goodbye.' There's my dear little aunt—who's been on deck ever since we passed Governor's Island—looking for me."
"Are these to be our last words together, then?" Val had a sickening pang. He had not known it was going to be as bad as this. And it wouldn't have been so bad, if she had seemed to care more.