“It is very fine,” said Bertha, with constraint, and then, with an unmistakably final movement, she turned away from it. Rollinson felt a sudden, wretched pang. If she cared at all for him, would not she also exult in this fair presentment of his young years?
After the luncheon had been served and before his guests had moved to go, he saw with a hopeful thrill that she had gone back to the picture and was standing before it again, intent and questioning.
He went up to her.
“Bertha! Dearest!” he said, beneath his breath. “After all, you like it, then?”
She turned upon him sharply. “It is wonderful—wonderful! But you should not have shown it to me! I do not understand. I—I thought I could have married you. Now I know that I never can. I—I never dreamed there was youth like that in the world. Oh, why did you let me find it out?”
Rollinson stood dumfounded.
“But it is I,” he found voice to plead at last. “Bertha, have the added years of worthy life made me less deserving of your love? Am I to be punished for becoming what he only promised to be?”
The girl passed her hand over her eyes in a bewildered way.
“It seems to me that one can love promise better than achievement,” she said, faintly. “To care for what is not, is, I fancy, the very essence of love.”
“I love you as he never could have done,” urged Rollinson. “As he never dreamed of caring for any one. His loves were superficial and selfish, Bertha. I have gained much, and I have lost nothing that—that is essential.”