"Why," he said, a little puzzled, "I'm afraid I don't see anything wrong with it—with your 'all of that!' Do you think I ought to?"
"Oh, it isn't so much what is wrong with it. It's only that it doesn't satisfy—does it? It is chaff—husks—a bubble—it has no substance."
He considered it for a moment. Then he submitted: "Has this?"
"Well, at least this has substance. It isn't empty."
"Isn't it?" he asked. "Do you know, I should just have reversed that opinion. I should have said there was a good deal more in the life you've deserted this winter than in the life you're choosing to live here!"
She laughed. "Perhaps I've reverted! Or perhaps we are in different phases of evolution! You have reached your—we'll call it your New York—and I have passed through it and come on to something better. Or if that sounds impolite we'll say that I have reached it and tumbled down again!"
"Oh, there's no impoliteness in the truth! You are generations, infinite ages, ahead of me!"
She made no answer to his humility, and for a while neither spoke again. Their talk was, of necessity, largely broken by intervals when all their attention was needed for the task in hand. The light snow made the going uncertain; they were taking the shorter way home, along the upper slopes, instead of crossing the valley, and they had, more or less, alternately to feel their way and to rush swiftly on across possible dangers.
At the crest of the last slope Rosamund paused, and they turned to look back at the way they had come. Flood watched her with eyes of devotion, as she stood there with her head thrown a little upwards, breathing deeply, her face warm with her delight in the beauty of the scene before her.
"How lovely it is!" she said, in the vibrating tone that always thrilled him.