“What is your aim? What do you hope to do?”
“I teach fools.”
“Do you even know yourself what you teach, for what you have been struggling for a whole year? To live the life that you prescribe is not within the bounds of possibility. It is all very new and bold, but....”
“There we are again at the same old point. I can hear the old lady piping,” he laughed scornfully, pointing in the direction of the house. “You speak with her voice.”
“Is that your whole answer, Mark? Everything is a lie; therefore, away with it! But the absence of any notion of what truth is to supersede the lies makes me distrustful.”
“You set reflexion above nature and passion. You are noble, and you naturally desire marriage. But that has nothing to do with love, and it is love and happiness that I seek.”
Vera rose and looked at him with blazing eyes.
“If I wished only for marriage, Mark, I should naturally make another choice.”
“Pardon me, I was rude,” he said in real embarrassment, and kissed her hand. “But, Vera, you repress your love, you are afraid, and instead of giving yourself up to the pleasure of it you are for ever analysing.”
“I try to find out who and what you are, because love is not a passing pleasure to me, but you look on it as a distraction.”