“With your friend Renée. And those are the hills of Petrarch’s tomb? They are mountains.”
They were purple beneath a large brooding cloud that hung against the sun, waiting for him to enfold him, and Nevil thought that a tomb there would be a welcome end, if he might lift Renée in one wild flight over the chasm gaping for her. He had no language for thoughts of such a kind, only tumultuous feeling.
She was immoveable, in perfect armour.
He said despairingly, “Can you have realized what you are consenting to?”
She answered, “It is my duty.”
“Your duty! it’s like taking up a dice-box, and flinging once, to certain ruin!”
“I must oppose my father to you, friend. Do you not understand duty to parents? They say the English are full of the idea of duty.”
“Duty to country, duty to oaths and obligations; but with us the heart is free to choose.”
“Free to choose, and when it is most ignorant?”
“The heart? ask it. Nothing is surer.”