“No, as a daily need of life, which is no matter for jesting. Like Raisky, I cannot sleep through the long nights, and I suffer nervous torture that I could not have believed possible. You say you love me; that I love you is plain? But I call you to happiness and you are afraid....”
“I do not want happiness for a month, for six months—”
“For your life long, and even after death?” asked Mark, scornfully.
“For life! I do not want to foresee an ultimate limit. I do not and will not believe in happiness with a term. But I do believe in another kind of intimate happiness, and I want....”
“To make me embrace the same belief.”
“Yes, I know no other happiness, and I would scorn it if I knew it.”
“Good-bye, Vera. You do not love me, but are for ever disputing, analysing either my character or the nature of happiness. We always get back to the point from which we started. I think it is your destiny to love Raisky. You can make what you will of him, can deck him out with all your Aunt’s tags, and evolve a new hero of romance every day, for ever and ever. I haven’t the time for that kind of thing. I have work to do.”
“Ah work, and love, with happiness as an afterthought, a trifle....”
“Do you wish to build a life out of love after the old fashion, a life such as that lived by the swallows who leave their nest only to seek food.”
“You would fly for a moment into a strange nest, and then forget.”