Hermia made Quintard stop under one of the electric lamps. It poured its steady beams through the storm for a mile and more, and in it danced the sparkling crystals in infinite variety of form and motion. About the pathway pressed the soft, unlustrous army, jealous of their transformed comrades, like stars that sigh to spring from the crowded milky way. Down that luminous road hurried the tiny radiant shapes, like coming souls to the great city, hungry for life.
Hermia clung to Quintard, her eyes shining out of the dark.
“Summer and the country have nothing so beautiful as this,” she whispered. “I feel as if we were on a deserted planet, and of hateful modern life there was none. I cannot see a house.”
“I see several,” said Quintard.
Hermia gave a little exclamation of disgust, but struggled onward. “Sometimes I hate you,” she said. “You never respond to my moods.”
“Oh, yes, I do—to your real moods. You often think you are sentimental, when, should I take you up, you would find me a bore and change the subject. You will get sentimental enough some day, but you are not ready for it yet.”
“Yes? You still cling to that ridiculous idea that I shall some day fall in love, I suppose.”
“I do. And how you will go to pieces.”
“That is purest nonsense. I wish it were not.”
“Have you got that far? But we will not argue the matter. Your mood to-night, as I suggested before, is not a sentimental one. You are extremely cross. I don’t know but I like that better. It would be hard for me to be sentimental in the streets of New York.”