"But, my dear child—"
"I thought I was sure."
"And all those letters—"
"Yes, yes," cried Louise tensely. "You see it was all letters, Aunt Marjie. And when I came suddenly to see him again...."
"Oh, come, child, we don't fall in love with men's hats and the twist of their profiles. You must still love whatever it was you loved all those long months you were apart. Isn't it reasonable?"
"I—I...." Oh, what was the use of asking her to be reasonable? What has a heart full of ghosts to do with reason? And Leslie....
She felt like crying. She began looking upon herself as almost a person who has been somehow wronged. Her emotion grew thicker. She drew shyly away.
Aunt Marjie, as she let her go from her, realizing that words just now would get them nowhere, was thinking that in the midst of a universe full of souls and wheeling planets, one poor heartache was like a grain of dust. Well, perhaps she was a kind of poet. But in a moment the impersonal millions, both of souls and of stars, vanished away, and this girl's problem ascended to a position of tremendous importance, if not quite of majesty.
At length, after he had smoked his cigar, the Rev. Needham did retire to the couch of his wonted siesta, leaving the household, as he thought, pleasantly and profitably disposed.