“Ah, that does not satisfy the heart.”
“What does?” Hadria exclaimed.
Anxiety about Professor Fortescue now made a gloomy background to the responsibilities of Hadria’s present life. Valeria’s occasional visits were its bright spots. She looked forward to them, with pathetic eagerness. The friendship became closer than it had ever been before, since Valeria had confided her sad secret.
“Yet, Valeria, I envy you.”
“Envy me?” she repeated blankly.
“I have never known what a great passion like that means; I have never felt what you feel, and surely to live one’s life with all its pettiness and pain, yet never to know its extreme experiences, is sadder than to have those experiences and suffer through them.”
“Ah, yes, you are right,” Valeria admitted. “I would not be without it if I could.”
The thought of what she had missed was beginning to take a hold upon Hadria. Her life was passing, passing, and the supreme gifts would never be hers. She must for ever stand outside, and be satisfied with shadows and echoes.
“Are you very miserable, Hadria?” Valeria asked, one day.
“I am benumbed a little now,” Hadria replied. “That must be, if one is to go on at all. It is a provision of nature, I suppose. All that was threatening before I went to Paris, is now being fulfilled. I can scarcely realize how I could ever have had the hopefulness to make that attempt. I might have known I could not succeed, as things are. How could I? But I am glad of the memory. It pains me sometimes, when all the acute delight and charm return, at the call of some sound or scent, some vivid word; but I would not be without the memory and the dream—my little illusion.”