“Why words? Instinct, nature, tells us when a thing is true. That great silent power often stands between the soul and what it loves. It is too deep for speech. Did you ever drop a pebble into a well to sound its depth? If it is shallow, you hear it when it strikes the bottom. But if you wait and never hear a sound, you know it is very deep.”
Her sweet, low laugh rippled out over the waters.
“Your laugh is like that of a child in a happy dream. I hope it will always keep that sound.”
Straining her to him a moment, he then put his hands to his face to shut out the dangerous sweetness.
“Nobody but you will ever understand what my nature is, because they have never so nearly felt it.”
“That’s true,” he said, “the only difference is that I know what is best for us and what is not.”
“To make music, one must have genuine feeling for it; that is true of love. There has always been a sympathy between us, but never before so deep as now. The greater the love, you know, the stronger the sympathy. Natures so well tempered, so sympathetically adapted, very seldom can endure; neither can afford to indulge in the beauty of one he loves, for he may lose his own seekings in sharing hers. Ideal love is not to be satisfied.”
He said this with such an expression of grief and sentiment that no one could doubt his belief in his own philosophy.
This was life indeed. If he could only hold it forever. He wanted to—he longed to—might he not desecrate this beautiful soul, by intruding his upon it for so short a time?
A sudden chill went through him. The horror of their ideals being endangered made him draw back. He had never entirely lost sight of the delicacy and nobility of the relation. He was her friend—her protector.