Mr. Brumley as I have said hated dilemmas. He started to his feet, a man stung. He stood in front of her and quivered extended hands at her. “What do such things matter,” he cried, “when a man is in love?”
She shrank a little from him. “But,” she asked, “haven’t they always mattered?”
“Yes,” he expostulated; “but these Hostels, these Hostels.... We’ve started them—isn’t that good enough? We’ve set them going....”
“Do you know,” she asked, “what would happen to the hostels if I were to marry?”
“They would go on,” he said.
“They would go to a committee. Named. It would include Mrs. Pembrose.... Don’t you see what would happen? He understood the case so well....”
Mr. Brumley seemed suddenly shrunken. “He understood too well,” he said.
He looked down at her soft eyes, at her drooping gracious form, and it seemed to him that indeed she was made for love and that it was unendurable that she should be content to think of friendship and freedom as the ultimate purposes of her life....
§7
Presently these two were walking in the pine-woods beyond the garden and Mr. Brumley was discoursing lamentably of love, this great glory that was denied them.