“That is exaggerated, I think. Besides, Heaven forbid our loving everybody! Never love, Ruth; let liking be strong enough for you. Love only wears out the body and narrows the mind, all to no purpose. Cupid, you know, died young, or wasted to plainness, for he never had his portrait taken after he matured.”
“A character such as you would have would be unbearable.”
“But sensible and wise.”
“Happily our hearts need no teaching; they love and hate instinctively before the brain can speak.”
“Good—for some. But in me behold the anomaly whose brain always reconnoitres the field beforehand, and has never yet considered it worth while to signal either ‘love’ or ‘hate.’”
He rose with a smile and sauntered over to the piano. The unbecoming blush mounted slowly to Ruth’s face and her eyes were bright as she watched him. When his hands touched the keys, she spoke.
“No doubt you think it adds to your intellect to pretend independence of all emotion. But, do you know, I think feeling, instead of being a weakness, is often more clever than wisdom? At any rate, what you are doing now is proof sufficient that you feel, and perhaps more strongly than many.”
He partly turned on the music-chair, and regarded her questioningly, never, however, lifting his hands from the keys as he played a softly passionate minor strain.
“What am I doing?” he asked.
“Making love to the piano.”