"I cannot see anything to call sad in one or other."
"No, I suppose you can't; you've got such a devilish well-balanced mind."
A faint shadow of annoyance if not absolute contempt lurked in the tones of the speech; but Stapledon failed to see it.
"I wish I had," he answered. "There are plenty of things in Nature that make a man sad—sounds, sights, glimpses of the eternal battle under the eternal beauty. But sadness is weakness, say what you will. There's nothing to be sentimental about really. It's because we apply our rule of thumb to her; it's because we try to measure her wide methods by our own opinions on right and justice that we find her unjust. I told Honor something of this; but she agrees with you that Nature's quite beyond apology, and won't be convinced."
"You've told her so many things lately—opened her eyes, I'm sure, in so many directions. She's as solemn as an owl sometimes when I'm with her. Certainly she doesn't laugh as often as she used to."
Myles was much startled.
"Don't say that; don't say that. She's not meant to take sober views—not yet—not yet. She's living sunlight—the embodiment of laughter, and all the world's a funny picture-book to her still. To think I should have paid for the pleasure she's brought me by lessening her own! I hope you're utterly wrong, Yeoland. This is a very unquieting thought."
The man spoke much faster than usual, and with such evident concern that Christopher endeavoured to diminish the force of his speech.
"Perhaps I'm mistaken, as you say; perhaps the reason is that we are now definitely engaged. That may have induced gravity. Of course it is a solemn thing for an intelligent girl to cast in her lot with a pauper."
But Myles would not be distracted from the main issue.