“Perhaps when you see each other——“
“Our letters are far more satisfactory than our meetings. I know he is fond of me.”
“You couldn't doubt that. It is worship.”
“I can say, at any rate, that I am so sure of his affection that it gives me no pain—not the least—to miss the—the other quality.”
“My dear, you are not in love with him, or you couldn't be so resigned.”
“I suppose you are right. I have never told him that I loved him. He has never asked me. Perhaps he took it for granted. As for me, I thought that the respect and esteem I felt would do.”
Sara shook her head.
“Not for us. We are different, I know, but we have hearts. We can suffer, we can endure, we can be resigned, we can be everything except uncertain, or luke-warm. Isn't that true?”
“Yes,” said Agnes, and she laughed a little. “It isn't my way,” she went on, “to talk like this about myself. Yet I can't help seeing that all this keeping silence, and disguising facts from one's own reason, is actually weak. I don't want to be weak. It isn't English. I don't want to be supine. That isn't English either. I want to be just and square all round—in my dealings with others and in my dealings with my own conscience. Papa has always taught us a great deal about individual liberty, and freedom of will. I am beginning to wonder what liberty means.”
“That's the first step toward a great change.”