“But may it not turn into a stone, an exquisite, pure diamond?” he asked.
She looked at him sadly. She shook her head.
“Diamonds are not made in a day.”
The light Jud Carpenter saw flashed in his eyes: “I have read of one somewhere who turned water into wine—and that was as difficult.”
“If—if—” she said gently—“if you had always been this—if you would always be this”—
“A woman knows a man as a rose knows light,” he said simply—“as a star knows the sun. But we men—being the sun and the star, we are blinded by our own light. Come, you may trust me, Sweet Rose.”
She put her hand in his. He took it half way to his mouth.
“Don't,” she said—“please—that is the old way.”
He lowered it gently, reverently, and they walked out.