“You must see me; you cannot leave me at the crossroads.”
“You are making yourself walk backwards to them,” he contradicted.
“You did not finish about yourself,” she refused to be conscious of his appointment, “the woman you—loved—that part of the story—”
“I told you all I have ever allowed myself to remember,” he corrected, the inner illumination vanishing and the rather cynical man of the world in elegant morning dress remaining.
CHAPTER XXXI
Thurley went directly home instead of keeping a luncheon engagement with Ernestine. She wanted to spend the afternoon in remembering all he had said. The greatness of his vision and the new standard for art had not impressed her as much as the moment when he had taken her hands—or told of his false love. Then Miss Clergy’s promise crossed the clearness of her reflection, blurring it badly; Dan’s bucolic letter on her desk marred her thoughts as well—so did the flowers from Mark, the handsome gift book from some one else; a myriad of incidents and engagements came to spoil the reverie. As sacred to her as the vision which had been shared with her, Thurley kept telling herself, “I am of the vanguard ... and I love him ... no other man can tempt me ... I love him, therefore I can live up to his vision and help him ... for he is sadly limited. He merely expresses what some one else must do.... I love him,” and when the charming question hinted itself to her,—“Suppose this man of a great vision and grave purpose, burned clean of youthful tragedy, should love you—what then?”—Thurley admitted that vows were brittle things and that if the circumstances so fell out she would not hesitate to prove the statement.
The next morning when she was writing Hobart a note trying to express something of all she felt towards his vision and his influence, as Dante said of Virgil, “their guide, their master and their friend,” Lissa dropped in for a call.