"I was saying," she remarked presently, "that I would not have you think that I do not appreciate the suffering in which you were plunged by the haste you found necessary in the wedding of your jeune fille."
But I was on my guard. "At least, I may thank you for your sympathy, Madam!" I replied.
"Yet in time," she went on, gone reflective the next instant, "you will see how very unimportant is all this turmoil of love and marriage."
"Indeed, there is, as you say, something of a turmoil regarding them in our institutions as they are at present formed."
"Because the average of humanity thinks so little. Most of us judge life from its emotions. We do not search the depths."
"If I could oblige Madam by abolishing society and home and humanity, I should be very glad—because, of course, that is what Madam means!"
"At any cost," she mused, "that torture of life must be passed on to coming generations for their unhappiness, their grief, their misery. I presume it was necessary that there should be this plan of the general blindness and intensity of passion."
"Yes, if, indeed, it be not the most important thing in the world for us to marry, at least it is important that we should think so. Madam is philosopher this morning," I said, smiling.
She hardly heard me. "To continue the crucifixion of the soul, to continue the misapprehensions, the debasings of contact with human life—yes, I suppose one must pay all that for the sake of the gaining of a purpose. Yet there are those who would endure much for the sake of principle, Monsieur. Some such souls are born, do you not think?"
"Yes, Sphinx souls, extraordinary, impossible for the average of us to understand."