"Ah, jeunesse!" smiled Miss Stellenthorpe. "Certainly, child of my heart, you do not love as yet—if you can ask yourself for a moment: Do I love? then it is certain you do not. But it will come—it will come. If not Nicholas, then another. But I think—however, I had best not tell you what I think! Only remember that it is not given to everyone to inspire love in so gallant a gentleman as is Nicholas Aubray. 'Sans peur et sans reproche'—those words often come to my mind when I think of Nicholas!"
"I like him very much," said Lily, more and more feebly, as Aunt Clo's periods overwhelmed her more and more with the sense of her own utter inadequacy.
Aunt Clotilde's smile became more pronounced, and also more deeply imbued with delicate and patronizing scorn.
"Well, well—the little 'like' may develop into a little 'love'—who knows? You need fear nothing tempestuous, nothing overwhelming, my Lily. Yours is not the passionate temperament. Don't look discomfited, child. I mean nothing derogatory—perhaps I envy you, in certain moments of soul weariness—chi lo sa? But I mean nothing unkind—nothing belittling. Only with me, as you know, Truth is a veritable obsession—entire frankness."
Lily was left with the subconscious suspicion that Aunt Clo's obsession for entire frankness was principally indulged in the direction of an unsparing candour with regard to the deficiencies of other people.
She did not resent Miss Stellenthorpe's diagnosis of her niece's emotional capacities as superficial. With all but the very lowest strata of her consciousness, she was inclined to endorse it. It was less trouble, even if rather less flattering to one's vanity, to take for granted the slightness of one's own demands upon life—and happiness—which latter Lily instinctively thought of as synonymous with love.
She replied to Nicholas Aubray's letters, which came often, with friendly, rather self-conscious epistles, answering his frequent, "Tell me about yourself, little pal," with rather laboriously enthusiastic accounts of her reading, her expeditions to Roman churches and ruins, her impressions of life at Genazzano.
Nicholas had said to her: "I've been told that I write rather good letters. I don't know whether I do or not, but anyhow I shall like writing to you, and I shall just put down anything that comes into my head—as though we were talking."
She found the letters he wrote to her delightful productions, full of an indescribable spirit of spontaneity, and was fully aware of the immaturity that characterized her own replies.
There were not many personalities in their correspondence, but Nicholas, towards the end of each letter, told Lily that he missed her companionship—that he looked forward very much to the time when he should see her again. Lily wondered rather tremulously when that time would come, and specially how it would be viewed by her father.