"Yes; but what is good isn't always proper. And so, here we are, right back from where we started. But no more of that. Let's talk of this chap. There's good stuff in him, if one could find the way to dig it out. But pathologically, he is still on the edge. Unless we can get some optimism into him, he'll probably start this all over again when he gets on his feet. That's the way it goes. But between us, we'll have him writing books some day. That's one of the troubles with young folks: they take themselves so seriously. He probably imagines himself to be a thousand times worse off than he actually is. Youth finds it pleasant sometimes to be melancholy. Disappointed puppy-love, and all that."
"Puppy-love."
"A young fellow who thinks he's in love, when he has only been reading too much."
"Do girls have puppy-love?"
"Land sakes, yes! On the average they are worse than the boys. A boy can forget his amatory troubles playing baseball; but a girl can't find any particular distraction in doing fancy work. Do you know, I envy you. All the world before you, all the ologies. What an adventure! Of course, you'll bark your shins here and there and hit your funnybone; but the newness of everything will be something of a compensation. All right. Let's get one idea into our heads. We are going to have this chap writing books one of these days."
Ideas are never born; they are suggested; they are planted seeds. Ruth did not reply, but stared past the doctor, her eyes misty. The doctor had sown a seed, carelessly. All that he had sown that afternoon with such infinite care was as nothing compared to this seed, cast without forethought. Ruth's mind was fertile soil; for a long time to come it would be something of a hothouse: green things would spring up and blossom overnight. Already the seed of a tender dream was stirring. The hour for which, presumably, she had been created was drawing nigh. For in life there is but one hour: an epic or an idyll: all other hours lead up to and down from it.
"By the way," said the doctor, as he sat down in the dining room of the Victoria and ordered tea, "I've been thinking it over."
"What?"
"We'll put those stories back into the trunk and never speak of them to him."
"But why not?"