“Why did you not come to me or send for me at once, Albert?” she asked reproachfully. “I have just met Ella, who says she has been trying to soothe your head. She looked flushed. Oh, Albert! can any one take the place of Clara when you are ill?”
“No, dear one. How absurd.”
“Why did she look so flushed? What had you been saying to her? Forgive me. I should not catechise you in this way.” Upon this, Albert rose and took her very tenderly in his arms.
“What would become of me, dearest, if I should lose you?” she said, raising her head from his shoulder and looking into his eyes almost wildly.
“My child, what a question!”
“But answer me, Albert,” she said imperatively.
“I hope you would be sensible enough to forget that you ever cared for one so unworthy of you,” he replied.
“Sweet words! Do you know, Albert, I could never be jealous of you?”
“Are you sure? They say if you can love you can be jealous,” he said, bending his head on one side and searching her eyes.
“I am sure. Jealousy implies anger with the loved one, or hatred of the rival. I could never feel either. I could only suffer;” and with a deep, long sigh, she laid her head back upon his shoulder. Presently raising it, she continued, “You said you learned abroad the meaning of the term ‘illusions,’ as applied to love. Except you, my father is the only person whom I ever heard use it in the same sense. There is no word that can supply its place. It implies the distinction between the love of lovers and all other kinds of love, and more than that, it implies all that is divine in loving. I think it hard to preserve these precious illusions, but without them love would have no charm for me. I should become a wretched wife.”