There were cadenced cries far overhead, as if among the stars, which began to swim into sight all over the firmament, and looking upward, a long line of great birds, with dusky wings wide spread, became visible.
'They are swans going to their nesting-places by some swamp,' said Stella. 'How plaintive and musical their notes are! Don't they make you understand what someone meant when he said that virtuous melodies teach virtue?'
'And what virtue could they teach Herzblättchen that she does not possess?'
'Handfuls! Try to believe this in time: gentleness, resignation, hope. Did you not tell me yourself, some time ago, that I was curiously lacking in hope? I always knew that a friend was more faithful than a lover!'
'But, Liebe, I am both; only the more I know you, the less I could bear to have you different.'
'That is what I am always promising when my happiness makes me afraid to be different. I take refuge in the thought that I am going to be so useful and helpful—to make some lives happier that without us might be intolerably hard; to make our future home a little radiant centre. Anselm, I had rather be a cat and mew at the moon than be self-complacent and wrapped up in my own prosperity like a cocoon.'
Langdale laughed softly at this quick vehemence of speech.
'But, Stella, how little danger there is of that! Do you want to make me believe that you have not always been helpful and loving—full of sympathy and tenderness and quick insight, ready always?'
'Ah, but you don't know how indifferent in between—how ready at any moment to believe that after all it does not much matter. You do not know this vagrancy of temperament. You are protected by your nationalities and your love of work. That gives you an ideal of duty apart from whim and sudden changes of mood.'
'I always knew that a friend was more faithful than a "Little-heart-leaflet."'