"Love is an acquisition. The more you have, the more you want."
"Pardon me," said Cary. "To my mind, love is a sacrifice. Yet the more you give, the more you gain."
"But I don't want to believe that!" pouted Flora, charmingly. "That is a cruel, ascetic conception of love. It makes me shiver, like reading the New Testament."
For the first time Artie spoke.
"You prefer, then, the Song of Solomon?" And the Angel brought his hand down on the table a little heavily, and looked at me.
"Yes, I do!" laughed Flora, thinking she had scored. "And I know—because I have loved!"
"You have loved, have you?" said Cary, leaning forward to look at her across Artie's tucked shirt-front. "Then if you have, truly and deeply, as a woman can, when she meets the man who is her mate, can you jest so lightly about love being an acquisition? Are you thinking of his income and what he can give you more than your father has been able to do? Does your idea of marriage consist of dinner-parties and routs? Or do you think of the man himself? Of his noble qualities of heart and mind? Does not the idea of permanent prosperity sometimes fade, and in its place do you not sometimes see the man you love, poor, neglected by his friends, and jeered by his enemies? Does he not sometimes appear to you stretched on a weary bed of sickness? Can you picture yourself his only friend, his only helper, his only comforter? If he were crippled for life, would you go out to try to earn bread for two, rejoicing that Fate had only taken his strength to toil, and not his strength to love? Would you still count yourself a blessed woman if you knew that everything were swept away but the love of a man worth loving like that?"
Flora quailed, and drew back, abashed and a little frightened, but
Artie's face was a study. At a sign from Aubrey, I looked at Mrs.
Jimmie and rose. Just behind me, as I turned, I heard Artie whisper to
Cary:
"Tell me, have you ever loved like that?"
And Cary's murmured reply: