“Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'”
“Almost every human being loves in a different way.”
“Well, then, your way I mean.” But noticing the momentary reticence which Anne's manner showed, she added, “I mean the kind of love you have most sympathy with in other people.”
“I have sympathy in all. My neighbours will tell you hereabouts that Anne Valery is the universal confidante, and the greatest marriage-maker (not match-maker) in all Dorset. I don't repudiate the character. It is pleasant to see young people loving one another.”
“Still, you have not told me what you call loving.”
“Do you really wish to hear?” said Anne, seriously. Then speaking in a low voice, she added: “I would have every woman marry, not merely liking a man well enough to accept him as a husband, but loving him so wholly, that, wedded or not, she feels she is at heart his wife and none other's, to the end of her life. So faithful, that she can see all his little faults (though she takes care no one else shall see them), yet would as soon think of loving him the less for these, as of ceasing to look up to heaven because there are a few clouds in the sky. So true, and so fond, that she needs neither to vex him with her constancy, nor burden him with her love, since both are self-existent, and entirely independent of anything he gives or takes away. Thus she will marry neither from liking, esteem, nor gratitude for his love, but from the fulness of her own. If they never marry, as sometimes happens”—and Anne's voice slightly faltered—“God will cause them to meet in the next existence. They cannot be parted—they belong to one another.”
All were silent—these three women—one to whom love must have been only a name; the other who spoke of it quietly, seriously, as we talk of things belonging to the world to come; and the third, who sat thoughtful, wondering, doubting, afraid to believe in a truth which brought with it her own condemnation.
“You talk, Miss Valery, as people do in books. Some would call it romance.”
“Would they? And do you?”
“Not quite. I used to think the same sometimes; but perfect love, like perfect beauty, is a thing one never meets with in real life.”