"But, Carl, he makes the music, and we love him in it, just as we love God in His works; and I cannot conceive of any love being acceptable to him when it infringed his right as supreme."
"You mean that he is proud."
"So proud that if love came to him without music, I don't think he would take any notice of it."
I felt as surely as she did, sure of that singular pride, but also that it was not a fallen pride, and that she could read it not.
"You mean, Maria, that if you and I were not musical,—supposing such a thing to be possible,—he would not like us nor treat us as he does now?"
"I know he would not."
"But then it would be impossible for us to be as we are if we were changed as to music, and we could not love as we do."
"I don't think that has anything to do with it, and indeed I am sure not. You see, Carl, you make me speak to you openly. I have never done so before, and I should not, but that you force me to it,—not that I dislike to speak of it, for I think of nothing else,—but that it might be troublesome."
Could it be that she was about, in any sense, to open her heart? Mine felt as if it had collapsed, and would never expand again; but I was very rejoiced, for many reasons.
"Oh, Maria! if I could hear you talk all day about your own feelings, I should know really that you cared to be my friend; but I could not ask you to do so, nor wish, unless you did."