Another pause gave Ruth a clue to his thoughts.
“No; I’m not exactly in that position—of course I want to earn money, too, but only because that is the world’s stamp of success,” she said.
He had evidently forgotten the picture they went to see, for he asked her if she was hungry, and when she said “No,—”
“I thought young things were always hungry, especially art students, but if you’re not hungry let’s sit here and talk. Nels and Miss Winslow will be sure to find us soon.”
“Astronomy must be an awfully interesting study,” she said, wondering how any man once having married Gloria could ever have let her go, and why Gloria once having loved a man like this, could ever have sent him away.
“Yes, interesting, but like art it is very long. I sometimes think I would have done better to take up astrology.”
“You’re joking,” said Ruth. “Surely you don’t believe in that sort of thing.”
“Why not? There’s a grain of truth at the bottom of all old beliefs, and it is as easy to believe that one’s destiny is controlled by the stars as to believe in a Divine Providence, sometimes much easier. The stars are cold, passionless things, inexorable and fixed, each moving in its appointed round—passing and repassing other stars, meeting and parting—alone as human lives are alone. There are satellites powerless to leave the planet around which they circle and here and there twin stars that seem one light from this distance, but doubtless are really millions of miles separated in space—”
He caught the intent look on her face and smiled:
“No, on the whole I think astrology would not have been any more satisfactory than astronomy, for even there, there is nothing clear cut, ‘The stars incline but do not compel.’ Just one thing is really sure, one must play with something.”