"Yes," I replied, "I was. I was thinking of that lover and his lass whom we have just passed."
"I do not know," she replied. "All I know is that I never felt it, and yet I confess to being twenty-four. It is an awful age, isn't it? Fancy a girl of twenty-four never having been in love! Yet, facts are facts. I do not deny that there is such a thing as affinity; but love, as I understand it, is, or ought to be, something spiritual, something divine, something which outlasts youth and all that youth means; something which defies the ravages of time, that laughs at impossibilities. No. I do not believe there is such a thing."
"Then what is the use of living?" I asked.
"I hardly know. We have a kind of clinging to life, at least the great majority of us have, although I suppose in the more highly cultured States suicides are becoming more common. We shudder at what we call death, and so we seek to live. If, like the old Greeks, we surrounded death with beautiful thoughts——"
"Ah yes," I interrupted; "but then we get into the realms of religion. The Greeks believed in an immortal part, and love to them was eternal."
"True," she replied. "But where is the old Greek mythology now? It has become a thing of the past. Mr. Erskine, will you forgive me for talking all this nonsense, for it is nonsense? I know I am floundering in a deep sea and saying foolish things. Besides, I must leave you. There is a house here where I must call."
She held out her hand as she spoke, and looked at me. I felt as though she were trying to fascinate me. For a second our eyes met, and I felt her hand quiver in mine. At that moment something was born in my mind and heart which I had never experienced before. I confess it here, because probably no one will read these lines but myself. I felt towards Isabella Lethbridge as I had never felt towards any woman before. Even in those days when I had flirted and danced and laughed with girls of my own age, and with whom I fancied myself in love, I had never felt towards a woman as I felt towards her.
"Good-day, Miss Lethbridge," I said, as I walked away.
"I hope you will come up to Trecarrel again soon," she said. "Please don't wait for a formal invitation; we shall always be glad to see you. At least, I shall," and she gave me a bewildering smile.
I walked some little distance down the road, then turned and watched her till she was out of sight. I tried to analyze the new feelings which had come into my life.