“But you say yourself that she loves him.”
“She cares for him—that was what I said. I don’t believe in love as I did. You can’t expect me to.”
She turned her face away from him, but he saw the bitterness in it, and it hurt him. He waited a moment before he answered her.
“Don’t visit my sins on your daughter, Lucy,” he said at last. “Don’t forget that love was a fact before you and I were born, and will be a fact long after we are dead. If these two love each other, let them marry. I hope that Clare is like you, but don’t take it for granted that Brook is like me. He’s not. He’s more like his mother.”
“And your wife?” said Mrs. Bowring suddenly. “What would she say to this?”
“My wife,” said Sir Adam, “is a practical woman.”
“I never was. Still—if I knew that Clare loved him—if I could believe that he could love her faithfully—what could I do? I couldn’t forbid her to marry him. I could only pray that she might be happy, or at least that she might not break her heart.”
“You would probably be heard, if anybody is. And a man must believe in God to explain your existence,” added Sir Adam, in a gravely meditative tone. “It’s the best argument I know.”