"To teach?"
"No; because I loved her."
The announcement came so suddenly that for a moment I could not answer. He often gave me his confidence, and I thought I knew his life, but this was news to me. I had always suspected that some love affair had sweetened and mellowed his nature, but he always avoided the subject and I had, of course, never pressed my inquiries. If he was ready to tell me now I was willing to listen with open ears.
"You loved her, Mac?" I said simply.
"Yes, as a boy loves; without thought—crazily—only that one idea in his mind; ready to die for her; no sleep; sometimes a whole day without tasting a mouthful; floating on soap-bubbles. Ah! we never love that way but once. It was all burned out of me though, that summer. I've just lived on ever since—painting a little, nursing these old logs, hobnobbing with you boys; getting older—most forty now—getting poorer."
"And did she love you, Mac?"
"Yes, same way. Only she got over it and I didn't."
"Some other fellow?"
"No, her father. Oh, there's no use going into it! But sometimes when I do my level best and put my heart into a thing, as I have done into that picture at the Academy, or as I poured it out to that girl in that old garden at Lucerne, and it all comes to naught, I lose my grip for a time and feel like putting my foot through my canvases and hiring out somewhere for a dollar a day."
I made no comment. My long years of intimacy with my friend had taught me never to interrupt him when he was in one of these moods, and never to ask him any question outside the trend of his thoughts.