“You are speaking for yourself,” she said. “Can you speak for Ruth?”
“No, I cannot,” he admitted. “Nor can you,” he added boldly. “That is what I meant when I asked if you were not thinking chiefly of the past. I cannot say that Ruth will love me always, but I can say this: she loves me now, as I love her, and in her heart she has said just what I said to you a moment ago,—that her love will endure.”
“I daresay I do think more of the past than of the present, Mr. Percival. You are right about the future. It is a blank page, to be glorified or soiled by what is set down upon it. Fate has thrown you two together. Perhaps it was so written in the past that you despise. A single turn of the mysterious wheel of fortune brought you into her life. Half a turn,—the matter of minutes,—and you would never have seen each other, and you would have gone your separate ways to the end of time without even knowing that the other existed. No doubt you both contend that you cannot live without each other. It is the usual wail of lovers. But are you quite as certain in your minds that you would have perished if you had never seen each other?”
The note of irony did not escape him. He smiled. “In that case, Mrs. Spofford, we should not have existed at all.”
She shook her head despairingly. “You are too clever for me,” she said. “I warn you, however, that I shall do everything in my power to persuade Ruth to reconsider her promise to you.”
“Nothing could be fairer than that,” said he, without rancor. “If she comes to me this afternoon and says she has changed her mind and cannot marry me, I shall not ask her again. Will you be kind enough, Mrs. Spofford, to include that in your argument? It may spare her a lot of worry and anxiety.”
He bowed ceremoniously and took his departure. She went to the window and, drawing aside the curtain, watched him until he disappeared down the road. Then, as the curtain fell into place, she said to herself:
“Their children will be strong and beautiful.”