“I am late in my walk to-day,” she began, with shy friendliness. “You are going—perhaps to-morrow? I may not see you.” In spite of herself her voice trembled. “I wish to thank you again, to wish you—all happiness.”
They went down the side-path together. “I can think of nothing to say,” he said at last, in a dreary tone. “I have had bad news.”
She instinctively came nearer and looked up at him with quick sympathy. “Is it a death—some one you loved?”
“Some one I loved—yes,” he replied. “But not death—worse, I think—worse for me.”
“Forgive me; I did not mean to intrude—to hurt you.”
“I am the one to apologize; I ought not to have intruded my sorrow. Let me speak of your happiness. I read in the Gazette this morning that your engagement is about to be announced—that you are marrying some one you have loved since childhood. I wish you happiness. I’m glad that you are getting your heart’s desire.”
She sighed; it sounded very like a sigh of relief. She seated herself on a rustic bench and he sat beside her. “You don’t understand how it is with us,” she said, after a long pause. “I am marrying my cousin. It is not a love-match; we care nothing each for the other. That is the way everything is with us—never for ourselves, always for the house, for the state.”
“Trash!” he ejaculated, bitterly. “Of course I don’t understand; there’s nothing to understand. It’s all pretence and lies, vain show, theatrical nonsense. We belong to the present, not to the childish, ignorant past. Now, I suppose I’ve offended you; I regret it, but—”
“No; I’m not offended. I almost agree with you. Then—my surroundings, my inheritance are too strong for me.”
“Suppose you had only a day to live,” he burst out. “Suppose you knew that you would die at sunset to-morrow—wink out, vanish, be gone forever, pass away utterly. Would you spend your one day of life in such fooleries as these?”