“And why not? My dearest Agnes, there is a good Fate as well as an evil one. How unjust men are! When anything unhappy takes place, they cry out against Fate: but when anything good happens, they never think of giving Fate the credit of it! We are going to change all that. I have already begun. I feel that I could compose the Fate theme—something joyous—ah, what did I say the other evening?—something with trumpets in it—that is what my Fate theme would be: pæans of joy rushing through it.”
“That is what the lover thinks, the lover who has not got the eyes of Fate—the eyes that see the end of the love and not merely the beginning.”
“But love—love—our love—can have no end. Love is immortal; if it were anything less it would cease to be love.”
“Poor child! Poor child! You have fathomed the mystery of Fate, and now you would fathom the mystery of Love. You will tell me in a few minutes all there is to be known of Love and Fate.”
“My dearest Agnes, your words have a chili about them, or is it that I am sensitive at this moment? A whisper of an east wind over a garden of June roses—those were your words—I am the June roses. Oh no; I am not in the least conceited—only June roses.”
She laughed as she made a gesture of dancing down the room.
Agnes's gesture was not one of merriment. She put her hands up to her face with a little cry that turned the girl's rapture of life to stone.
“What—what can you mean?” she said, after a long silence.
Agnes looked at her for a moment, then turned away from her, and walked slowly and with bowed head to the fire.
“Punishment—his punishment—I meant it to be his punishment,” she whispered. “I did not think of her—I did not mean her to share it—she is guiltless.”