"You don't believe in love!" he echoed. "O child, what do you believe in, then?"
The passion of his tone moved her to a surprised smile.
"Well, I believe in being happy while you can," she replied tranquilly. "And love isn't happiness. All my girl and men friends who are what they call 'in love' seem to be thoroughly miserable. Many of them get perfectly ill with jealousy, and they never seem to know whether what they call their 'love' will last from one day to another. I shouldn't care to live at such a high tension of nerves. My own mother and father married 'for love,' so I am always told,—and I'm sure a more quarrelsome couple never existed. I believe in friendship more than love."
As she spoke, Helmsley looked at her steadily, his face darkening with a shadow of weary scorn.
"I see!" he murmured coldly. "You do not care to over-fatigue the heart's action by unnecessary emotion. Quite right! If we were all as wise as you are at your age, we might live much longer than we do. You are very sensible, Lucy!—more sensible than I should have thought possible for so young a woman."
She gave him a swift, uneasy glance. She was not quite sure of his mood.
"Friendship," he continued, speaking in a slow, meditative tone, "is a good thing,—it may be, as you suggest, safer and sweeter than love. But even friendship, to be worthy of its name, must be quite unselfish,—and unselfishness, in both love and friendship, is rare."
"Very, very rare!" she sighed.
"You will be thinking of marriage some day, if you are not thinking of it now," he went on. "Would a husband's friendship—friendship and no more—satisfy you?"
She gazed at him candidly.