"No, father, permit me to take a few minutes of time, I beg you. This is necessary. Every man has in himself a soul, so-called, personal to him, unlike others."
She halted for a moment, shrugged her shoulders:
"For that matter, am I sure of this? The soul may be a painted pot also. But it is the usual name given to our various feelings and inclinations. So pour le commodite de la conversation, I shall use this word." She smiled and continued: "There are various souls, some as hard as steel, others soft as wax, some inaccessible to sentiment, others sentimental. Mamma's soul is soft and sentimental. Tenderness, care, confidence are as needful to her as air is to breathing. Do I know, for that matter, the various ingredients which make up the so-called love, attachment, etc. You, father, have a soul of steel and immensely great business power—we were children—Cara had barely begun to speak then. Well, a moment came—do I know when? I do not know—but—finally that happened which must have happened more than once to you in your very numerous, remote, and prolonged journeys. Do I not speak the truth?"
In the high plates of her dark ruff her face was in a blush, but she smiled a little, and with strangely flashing eyes looked directly into the face of her father.
"For," added she, "one would need to have mental rheumatism to believe that you loved only mamma all the time, and even that you loved her in general—mamma, of course, did not think that you did."
"Irene!" cried Darvid.
But she did not permit interruption.
"Allow me, I beg you, to say that I am not criticising. I am not in any sense. There is not a shade of criticism in what I say. I only state and expose facts and causes. That is all. This is requisite. Without this it would be impossible to understand mamma's request and mine which I will tell you quickly. And now I return to the question of the individual soul. That is a thing of capital importance. Offences, so-called, rise from so-called mean souls, or from noble ones. Of the first I know little, but if an offence comes from a noble soul it is to that soul a great and terrible torment—I have looked at such a torment, and while looking at it I have been brought to name the so-called love, and the so-called happiness, painted pots. Idyls! There may be idyls somewhere, but that which I saw—I assure you, father, did not encourage—did not encourage me to look at things from the idyllic angle."
Darvid rose with an impulsive movement.
"To the question, Irene, to the question! Say what the request is for which you have come. And from what does your mother suffer so greatly? It would be better were you to tell your wish at once, and without these introductions. Do reproaches of conscience trouble your mother? I have no time for psychological analysis, and should like to finish this conversation more quickly. Well, was it that besides conscience and other things like it—she did not find in her lover the man whom her sentiment imagined? I am ashamed to speak with you of this. Tell quickly what your wish is."