“I would—only I happen to know you a good deal better than you know yourself.”
“What do you know about me, then, that I don’t?”
Gillian’s nice brown eyes smiled across at her.
“I know that, somewhere inside you, you’ve got the capacity for being as sweet and kind and tender and self-sacrificing as any woman living—if only something would happen to make it worth while. I wish—I wish to heaven you’d fall in love!”
“I’m not likely to. I’m in love with my art. It gives you a better return than love for any man.”
“No,” answered Gillian quietly. “No. You’re wrong. Tony died when we’d only been married a year. But that year was worth the whole rest of life put together. And—I’ve got Coppertop.”
Magda leaned forward suddenly and kissed her.
“Dear Gillyflower!” she said. “I’m so glad you feel like that—bless you! I wish I could. But I never shall. I was soured in the making, I think”—laughing rather forlornly. “I don’t trust love. It’s the thing that hurts and tortures and breaks a woman—as my mother was hurt and tortured and broken.” She paused. “No, preserve me from falling in love!” she added more lightly. “‘A Loaf of Bread, and Thou beside me in the Wilderness’ doesn’t appeal to me in the least.”
“It will one day,” retorted Gillian oracularly. “In the meantime you might go on telling me about the man who fished you out of the smash. Was he young? And good-looking? Perhaps he is destined to be your fate.”
“He was rather over thirty, I should think. And good-looking—quite. But he ‘hates my type of woman,’ you’ll be interested to know. So that you can put your high hopes back on the top shelf again.”