"But though you can't go beyond love," he said, "you can go into it—penetrate, penetrate, as you said just now, yourself. And the more you penetrate into it the more you will see that there is no end to it, and no beginning either. And then you will call it by another name."
He paused for a moment, and got up as he heard himself somewhat shrilly summoned from within the house.
"It seems to you all rather dull, I am afraid, my dear," he said, "but it isn't."
Elizabeth rose also.
"But why would it be nonsense for you to speak of it as I did?" she asked. "And why is it excellent sense for me to do so?"
"Because when you are forty-eight, my dear, you will have had to learn a certain sort of patience and indulgence, which is quite out of place when you are eighteen. You will have seen that the people who bake bread and milk cows and review troops, as I do, may conceivably be doing—well, doing quite nicely. But you are quite right to think them useless old fogies at present!"
Elizabeth gave him a quick little kiss.
"You are a darling!" she said. "And now I am going to vanish swiftly round the corner of the veranda. Mamma has called you three times and you haven't answered. You will get into trouble, and so I desert you."
Elizabeth's amiable scheme was executed a little too late. She had barely got half-way down the veranda when her stepmother rustled out of the drawing-room, already dressed for her party. Her light, slight figure was still like a girl's—like a girl's, too, was her evening dress, with its simple, straight cut. Nor did her face—smooth, delicate, and soft—belie the impression; but her forehead and the outer corners of her eyes were a little lined, as if a sleepless night had momentarily devitalized her youth. And her voice, when she spoke, was old—old and querulous.
"Bob, I have been calling and calling you!" she said. "And are you not dressed yet? What have you been doing? Elizabeth, why did you not send your father to dress? We shall be late, as usual, and if husband and wife are late every one always thinks it is the wife's fault. Do go and dress, my dear; and Elizabeth, my darling, will you come and talk to me while I wait for him? I am so dreadfully tired! I am sure I do not know how I shall get through the evening. What a pity you are not a year older, and then you could go instead of me and let me pass a quiet evening at home! Or why are not you and I going to have a dear little evening alone together?"