Staring at her dark eyes, darker now from pain, Jon answered:
"Yes; oh! yes—if YOU could be."
Irene smiled.
"Admiration of beauty, and longing for possession are not love. If yours were another case like mine, Jon—where the deepest things are stifled; the flesh joined, and the spirit at war!"
"Why should it, Mother? You think she must be like her father, but she's not. I've seen him."
Again the smile came on Irene's lips, and in Jon something wavered; there was such irony and experience in that smile.
"You are a giver, Jon; she is a taker."
That unworthy doubt, that haunting uncertainty again! He said with vehemence:
"She isn't—she isn't. It's only because I can't bear to make you unhappy, Mother, now that Father—" He thrust his fists against his forehead.
Irene got up.