"It only makes the present worse than it need be. To know what life might be and feel what it is—that's the bitter spring where half the discontent in the world rises from."
"And the jealousy and mistrust and bad will too, I dare say. Look here, Jacob, I'm cruel sorry about Adam Winter. I'm sorry for myself, and sorrier for him."
"But not for me?"
"Yes, for you, because you're such an infant still—groping and blind for all your wisdom—and no more able to read character than a child. I met Adam Winter in Plymouth. I was alone. Auna had gone to sea with Uncle Lawrence and I'd been to the Guildhall, where there was a great concert. But I came out before the end, because I was tired of it, and looking in a shop window Adam found me. We went and had tea together. And then he told me his aunt had begged him to stop a few days more, so we fixed to meet again, and we did do, when Auna was to sea again. And once more we had tea in a big shop in the midst of the town."
"But you never breathed a word of this until you found that Winter had told me about it."
"I did not, because I feared it might vex you."
"Vex me! Is that all? A pretty small word."
"Surely large enough for such a small thing. It couldn't, at worst, do more than vex you to know I'd met a good neighbour and drank tea with him."
"I'd give my immortal soul to look in your heart," he answered.
"It's always open for you, if you'd believe your eyes."