“No,” answered Beatrice, thoughtfully. “But I want to know. I might easily love some one whom I had not seen with my eyes, if he were always sending me messages and doing kind actions for me: but I could not love somebody who was to me a mere name, and nothing more.”
“It is plain thou hast no sensitiveness, Beatrice.”
“I’d rather have sense,—wouldn’t you?” said little Marie.
“As if one could not have both!” sneered Eva.
“Well, if one could, I should have thought thou wouldst,” retorted Marie.
“Well! I don’t understand you!” said Eva. “I cannot care to be loved with less than the whole heart. I should not thank you for just the love that you can spare from other people.”
“But should not one have some to spare for other people?” suggested Marie.
“That sounds as if one’s heart were a box,” said Beatrice, “that would hold so much and no more. Is it not more like a fountain, that can give out perpetually and always have fresh supplies within?”
“Yes, for the beloved one,” replied Eva, warmly.
“For all,” answered Beatrice. “That is a narrow heart which will hold but one person.”