“Certainly not. There are wicked passions. But love can never be wicked, because God is love.”
“But people can love wickedly?” asked Eva, looking puzzled.
“I fail to see how any one can love wickedly. Self-love is always wicked.”
“Then, Father, if it be wicked, you call it self-love?” said Eva, leaping (very cleverly, as she thought) to a conclusion.
“Scarcely,” said Bruno, with a quiet smile. “Say rather, my daughter, that if it be self-love, I call it wicked.”
The perplexed expression returned to Eva’s face.
“My child, what is love?”
“Why, Father, that is just what we want to know,” said Marie.
But Bruno waited for Eva’s answer.
“I suppose,” she said nervously, “it means liking a person, and wishing for his company, and wanting him to love one.”