Gabriella could answer a remark like that quickly enough.
"Certainly: it is hard to wait even for a slight pleasure, and it is best to be through with suffering."
He looked as if cold water and hot water had been thrown on him at the same time: he received shocks of different kinds and was doubtful as to the result. He shook his head questioningly.
"I may do very well with science, but I am not so sure about women."
"Aren't women science?"
"They are a branch of theology," he said; "they are what a man thinks about when he begins to probe his Destiny!"
XVII
David slept peacefully that night, like a man who has reached the end of long suspense. When he threw his shutters open late, he found that the storm had finished its work and gone and that the weather had settled stinging cold. The heavens were hyacinth, the ground white with snow; and the sun, day-lamp of that vast ceiling of blue, made the earth radiant as for the bridal morn of Winter. So HIS thoughts ran.
"Gabriella! Gabriella!" he cried, as he beheld the beauty, the purity, the breadth, the clearness. "It is you—except the coldness, the cruelty."