Her youth? Yes, it was youth that leapt quivering in her tragic face, like a blown flame. Her body hardly counted except as fuel to the eager and incessant fire.
"Don't hate it," he said. "It is the most beautiful thing you have to give him."
"Ah—if I could give it him!"
He smiled. "You have given it him. He isn't old when he can inspire such devotion. He is to be envied."
He rose and held out his hand. As she took it, Miss Gurney's flame-like gaze rested on him a moment and grew soft.
"If you want to know, it was Lucia Harden who sent me your poems," said she. And he knew that for once Miss Gurney had betrayed a secret.
He wondered what had made her change her mind. He wondered whether Lucia had really made a secret of it. He wondered what the secret had to do with Fielding. And wondering he went away, envying him the love that kept its own divine fire burning for him on his hearth.