“Yes. Do you not know many cases in which people have tried the experiment and have failed? It is no less an experiment if it happens to succeed. Affection is a matter of fact, but love is a matter of speculation.”
“I should not think that experimental love would be worth much,” said Constance, with a shade of embarrassment. A very faint colour rose in her cheeks as she spoke.
“One should have tried it before one should judge. Or else, one should begin at the other extremity and work backwards from hate to love, through the circle of one’s acquaintances.”
“Why are you always alluding to hating people?” asked the young girl, turning her eyes upon him with a look of gentle, surprised protest. “Is it for the sake of seeming cynical, or for the sake of making paradoxes? It is not really possible that you should hate every one, you know.”
“With a few brilliant exceptions, you are quite right,” George answered. “But I was hoping to discover that you hated some one, for the sake of observing your symptoms. You look so very good.”
It would have been hard to say that the expression of his face had changed, but as he made the last remark the lines that naturally gave his mouth a scornful look were unusually apparent. The colour appeared again in Constance’s cheeks, a little brighter than before, and her eyes glistened as she looked away from her visitor.
“I think you might find that appearances are deceptive, if you go on,” she said.
“Should I?” asked George quietly, his features relaxing in a singularly attractive smile which was rarely seen upon his face. He was conscious of a thrill of intense satisfaction at the manifestation of the young girl’s sensitiveness, a satisfaction which he could not then explain, but which was in reality highly artistic. The sensation could only be compared to that produced in an appreciative ear by a new and perfectly harmonious modulation sounded upon a very beautiful instrument.
“I wonder,” he resumed presently, “what form the opposite of goodness would take in you. Are you ever very angry? Perhaps it is rude to ask such questions. Is it?”
“I do not know. No one was ever rude to me,” Constance answered calmly. “But I have been angry—since you ask—I often am, about little things.”