Flint: His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes

by Maud Wilder Goodwin

"Oh, yes," Flint answered quietly, "I can quite understand it; I think I should feel in the same way if I were not perfectly sure I loved a person."

Winifred felt herself touched by his quick response and perfect comprehension of her state of mind; but her feeling was too intense, too direct and too importunate, to be stayed in its utterance.

"I cannot marry you. I never could promise. I am sure of it. Forgive me!"

Flint rose and stood by the mantel, toying absently with a bronze model of the Praxiteles Faun which rested on its shelf.

"It is all right," he said, "and I shall always [Pg 262] thank you for it all, and say God bless you, whatever happens; only for a while I must go away and make my life over a bit in the light of all this."

"Why must you go away?"

"Because—" Here Flint paused, and began to walk the floor impatiently. "Oh, if you can ask that, I could not make you understand. It is useless to go on talking."

"No," said Winifred, now with fuller command of herself, "it is not useless; it is necessary. We must make each other understand. If we cannot do it now, how much less afterward! It always seems to me as if it were selfish folly in men and women to act as if their love were the only reality in the world, so that they forget everything that they owe to other people. Yes," she added, gathering strength as she went on, "I think it would be selfish in you to consider only yourself, or even yourself and me, in this matter, and I think it would be foolish if—if you really care for me, as you say you do, to throw away all my interest and regard and sympathy just because I do not consent to marry you. If you would only put that idea out of your head, I think I could be of some service to you. I know you could be of great service to me."

As Winifred uttered these words she sat looking [Pg 263] up at him with wide-open, childlike eyes, a hint of pathetic appeal in her voice.

Flint paused a moment, as one who counted the cost of his words. Then he said slowly: "It shall be as you wish; but on your own head lie the risks. When a man has once said, 'I love you,' the woman to whom he says it sees it in his eyes and hears it in his voice forever after. I tell you," he went on, setting down the faun hard on the mantel, "love is like the spirit which the Arabian fisherman let out of the shell. It can never be shut up again—never—never—never!"