"Many?" he answered, and up went his brows. "Such as my Lady Mary and such-like? But that is no love, Stellakin. 'T is only thy innocence could mistake it. The true name is none so pretty, and not for thy lips. Get thee to a nunnery, child--the world is not for such as thee."
So I faltered out: "What is love?"
"A thing that hath no existence between man and woman in this world, so mixed is it with lust and hatred and jealousy. True, there is love, but it is not that one. 'T is the loves filial and paternal, and friendship, better than all the loves the rhymesters hang with their namby-pamby. The love between the sexes--'t is a game wherein the weaker loses, and then--voe victis! Hast forgot thy Latin, child?"
And then I broke out into a great sobbing, as if my bursting heart would break; for, I know not why, but this cut me like a knife. And he took my hand with anxious kindness to soothe me; and at the bird's rustle in the tree, dropt it and stood apart. He lived in the eye of the world even in such affections as he owned. But I sobbed on.
"Pray, pray, don't sob, Stella," he says. "This is mighty, mighty ill and like a child. Dry those pretty eyes,--prettier, gadso! than any Lady Mary's of them all!--and tell me wherein I have offended 'T was not willingly."
So, drowned in tears, I lookt up, and having lookt, turned away weeping, and could say no more. For what skill had I to argufy with a man of such infinite parts? And yet well I knew that in this matter of love I was the wiser, though but a simpleton. But he caught my hands.
"Have I hurt thee, Stella? I were a devil if I did. What ails my girl at love? What is it to thee? Keep away from that raging fire. Souse it with every stream of reason and honour. Heap the ice of the Pole on it, for it is not only hell itself but feeds the flame of hell eternal."
He so wrung my hand that it pained; and I saw his face work like a man most desperately sick and ill. It dried the tears in my eyes, and I stood trembling and staring upon him, and the twilight was sweet about us with a smell of grass and growing things and flowers; a night for lovers--and I most miserable.
"I doubt--" he began and stopt; and then, with a cry that choked in his throat, he put his arms about me and I laid my head on his breast.
Should I blame myself for that half-hour? Should I blame my Dear, the Desire of mine eyes? 'T was but a step to take across the line that parts innocence from--No, no, never will I say guilt! 'T was not guilt, if all the tongues of men and angels should so preach. 'T is in the later denial of love that guilt lay hid. But these things I did not then know, and I thought in my simplicity the world changed and the foolish girl become a woman and beloved, and our lives together in a fair prospect before us.