"It wouldn't help me," she replied, "because although I am not reconciled with the things of earth I want to be—oh, how I want to be!"
"But you can't be—not you," he said. "You're of that particular fibre which grows stronger through pain, I think—and, in the end, how much easier it is to be made all spirit or all clay—it's the combination, not the pure quantity that hurts."
"I wonder if you ever know what it is?" she rejoined. "Does the earth ever pull you back when you want to climb?"
His smile faded, and he looked at her again with the sympathy which accepted, without explanation, not only her outward aspect, but the soul within. "There's not much in my life that counts for a great deal, Laura," he said, "but you come in for considerably the larger share of it. At this moment I am ready to do either of two things, as you may wish—I am ready to stand aside and let your future settle itself as it probably will, or I am ready, at your word, to hear everything and to judge for you as I would judge for myself. No—no, don't answer me now," he added, "carry it away with you, and remember or forget it, as you choose."
Though there were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, she turned away, after an instant, with a flippant laugh.
"Why, it all sounds as if I were really unhappy!" she exclaimed, "but you won't believe that, will you?"
"I'll gladly believe otherwise when you prove it."
"But haven't I proved it? Don't I prove it every day I live?"
"You prove to me at this minute that you are particularly wretched," he returned.
"I am not—I am not," she retorted angrily, while a frown drew her dark brows together. "You have no right to think such things of me—they are not true."