They were in the long dining-room and had just finished dinner. Mr. Mowbray had telegraphed that he was coming home that evening and would want to see Anthony. But he had not yet arrived. She was looking at the portrait of her mother over the great mantel-piece.
“If ever I marry,” she said, “I shall pray God to send me a man who will like me and think of me as a good friend and comrade.”
They neither spoke for a while.
“It was a love-match on both sides, between your father and your mother, wasn’t it?” asked Anthony.
“No woman ever had a more perfect lover, so my mother told me,” she answered with a curious laugh. “For the first five years. I remember waking in the night. My mother was kneeling by my bed with her head buried in her arms. I didn’t understand. I supposed it was something grown up people did. I went to sleep again; and when I opened my eyes again it was dawn. She was still there. I called to her, and she raised her head and looked at me. It was such a strange face. I didn’t know it was my mother.”
Anthony looked at the picture. Betty was growing more like her every day.
“I wonder if we would be better without it,” he said. “All the great love stories of the world: they’ve all been tragedies. Even the people round about us whom we know; it always seems to end in a muddle. Is every man bound to go through it?” he added with a laugh. “Or could a man keep out of it, do you think?”
“I think a strong man might,” she answered. “It’s weak men that make the best lovers.”
“There have been strong men who have loved,” suggested Anthony.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Those are the great love stories that end in tragedy.”