“A knight should not ask to wear his lady’s colours until he has won his spurs.”
“King Cophetua and the beggar-maid—very fine! but the other way—humiliating!”
“A woman may take everything from a man, wealth and fame and position. But there is only one thing that a man may accept from a woman—something that she alone can give—happiness.”
“Self-respect is less than love, but it is the trellis that holds love up from the ground; break it down, and all the flowers are in the dust, the fruit is spoiled.”
“And yet”—so the man’s thought shone through everywhere—“I think she must know that I love her, and why I cannot speak.”
One entry was written in a clearer, stronger hand: “An end of hesitation. The longest way is the shortest. I am going to the city to work for the Academy prize, to think of nothing else until I win it, and then come back with it to Claire, to tell her that I have a future, and that it is hers. If I spoke of it now it would be like claiming the reward before I had done the work. I have told her only that I am going to prove myself an artist, AND TO LIVE FOR WHAT I LOVE BEST. She understood, I am sure, for she would not lift her eyes to me, but her hand trembled as she gave me the blue flower from her belt.”
The date of his return to Larmone was marked, but the page was blank, as the day had been.
Some pages of dull self-reproach and questioning and bewildered regret followed.
“Is it possible that she has gone away, without a word, without a sign, after what has passed between us? It is not fair. Surely I had some claim.”
“But what claim, after all? I asked for nothing. And was it not pride that kept me silent, taking it for granted that if I asked, she would give?”