“What ails you?” asked Margot.
“Nothing,” said Gabrielle. But a flush stole up her cheeks. “How does a woman know, Mother, that she loves, so that she may say certainly, ‘This is love’?”
“By the utter despair that tears her heart in two.”
“But, Mother,” protested Gabrielle, “they tell me that love is sweet!”
“Sweet? As wormwood!” said Margot hoarsely. “It is nothing but fever and fret.”
“Many I see who have it; but none who fret. Might I not know for myself a little of this pretty play of lovers and beloved?” besought Gabrielle.
Margot looked at Gabrielle and trembled, seeing the shadow upon her, foreseeing the fate of her loveliness, perceiving indiscretion’s lips at the rim of the cup of terror. “What man has snared your silly heart?” she asked.
Gabrielle stared at her. “Why should any man snare my heart?” she asked in pitiful wonder. “I have never harmed any man, nor any living thing.” She caught her breath. “Oh, Mother, feel my heart beating! It beats as if it would burst. Why does my heart beat so? Am I dying? Do you think that I must die? Yet, Mother, my heart is aching so that I would that I could die! Is not what God made good ... you told me that God was love ... was not mankind made by God ... and is not love the world’s delight?”
“It is its direst misery,” said Margot bitterly. “God keep you from it. Two parts are pain, two sorrow, and the other two parts are death.”
“I don’t fear death,” said Gabrielle. “Then why should I fear love?”