"You send me away, Paula," I said, "out of these dear old associations into others altogether new and strange, from which it is scarce possible that I can return as I departed, while it is quite as improbable that I shall find again what I leave. Have you well considered all this? And if, as I must suppose, you have considered it, then----Paula, I wish it were less easy for you to send me away."
"Who says that it is easy for me?" asked Paula, quickly rising and taking a few steps across the room. These steps, by chance apparently, brought her to her easel, and she remained standing before it with her face averted from me.
"I mean," I said, "that I wish you found it harder to do without me, if not on your own account for the sake of your mother and your brothers; that, in a word, I were to them what you are now. But, Paula, you have always been so proud; and in truth you have now more reason than ever."
Paula had found something to do at her easel, and some little time passed before she answered:
"You men are strange creatures: everywhere you wish your influence to be felt; even what you approve does not come to pass satisfactorily unless it is your doing. But this is only a transient feeling of yours, which I can well understand----"
"I do not know whether you quite understand it," I said in a low tone.
"Perfectly, perfectly," she said, bending lower over her easel; "when any one is as much attached to another as you are to us, he desires to be always giving, and feels it a heavy loss if this comes to be out of his power. But I really do not see why we sadden ourselves so unnecessarily. You are not going to be carried away from us forever. You are only moving out of a narrow, wretched channel, unfit for so proud a ship, into the broad ocean. Of course you will of necessity often forget us a little, or perhaps entirely; for the man who wishes to do anything great and complete must have his arms free: he cannot and must not drag the toys of his childhood or the idols of his youth with him through life. I wish that you would see that clearly, George; bring yourself to see it clearly in this moment, of which I repeat that I consider it a decisive one; since now, for the first time in your life, after long years of apprenticeship, you enter on the rights of a master--can for the first time show yourself as you are. At a decision like this, all subordinate interests must stand back: all, George; even we--our mother, your brothers, your sister."
I could not see her face, which she still held down, but there were tears in her voice.
I approached her, but she turned her face away.
"Paula!" I said.