"Now I just like to see them," said Christina, for once the serious person of the two, "they're so awfully happy."
"Awfully, indeed!" cried Ruth, with a superior little laugh. "Very vulgarly happy, I should say!" And Tiny did not immediately reply, but her eyes had fallen as far as the fretwork of the shabby foliage in the Mall, over which the sky still glowed; and when she spoke her words were the words of youthful speculation. She seemed, indeed, to be thinking aloud, and not at all sure of the sense of her thoughts.
"Very vulgarly happy!" she repeated, so long after the words had been spoken that it took Ruth some moments to recall them. "I am trying to decide whether there isn't something rather vulgar about all happiness of that kind—from the highest to the lowest. Forgive me, dear—I don't mean anything the least bit personal—I find I don't mean a word I've said! I wasn't thinking of the happiness itself so much, but of the desire for it. Oh, there must be something better for a girl to long for! There is something, if one only knew what it was; but nobody has ever shown me, for instance. Still there must be something between misery and marriage—something higher."
Her eyes had not fallen, but they shone with tears.
"I don't know anything higher than marrying the man you love," said Ruth honestly.
"Ah, if you love him! There is no need for you to know a higher happiness, even if one were possible in your case. But look at me!"
"You must marry, too," said Ruth with facility.
"As I probably shall; but to be happy, as you are happy, one ought to be fond of the person first, as you were; and—well, I don't think I have ever in my life felt as you felt."
"Stuff!" said Ruth, but with as much tenderness as the word would carry.
"I wish it were," returned Christina sadly; "it's the shameful truth. I have been going over things lately, and that's never a very cheerful employment in my case, but I think it has taught me my own heart this time. And I know now that I have never cared for anyone so much as for myself—much less for Lord Manister! If I had ever really cared for him I couldn't have treated him as I have done—no, not if he had behaved fifty times worse in the beginning. I was flattered by him, but I think I liked him, though I know I was dazzled by—the different things. I would have married him; I never loved him—nor any of the others!"