“I shall believe it when he tells me so himself,” was Helia’s answer.
Socrate put his hands to his head, as if to say: “Can one be such a fool!”
“But, really,” he said aloud, “since you love him so much, why do you not use the weapons you have to bring him back to you?”
“Weapons!”
“His letters!”
“You are a miserable fellow! See—here are his letters!” And Helia took from her breast a few yellowed envelopes. “They might, indeed, fall into the hands of a wretch like you.” And opening them, she tore the pages in small pieces.
“But there’s a fortune in them for you!” gasped Socrate. “You don’t know what you are doing!”
“There’s what I care for such a fortune!” said Helia; and she opened wide her hand. It might have been a flight of white butterflies. The light breeze scattered the fragments on every side. Some seemed to hesitate, as if issuing from a warm nest, and then mounted upward, whirling around in space. Others fell on the hedge. All these poor little things which had been promises of love, and held in themselves an entire youth, were scattered at once by a breath from heaven.
“Yet I loved them well,” she said. “Only it is better so.”
Then, speaking to Socrate, she added proudly: “I will not have him love me for fear,—I wish him to love me for love’s sake!”