"How strange everything has been. I used to fear that there never would be a time when I could talk to you without embarrassment. This fear did not come from any word or action of yours, but from a true estimate of myself."
"How a true estimate?"
"Why, an almost overpowering knowledge of my own ignorance."
She gave him an imploring look. He continued:
"You have ever been kind to me. You have helped me, inspired me. I know nothing of the world, but I know gratitude. When I am reading a book, and hold so much within my grasp, the world seems very small; but when I look away at the clouds floating far beyond the hills, I then feel that the world is very large. But, Eva, may it be large or small, there is to me but one source of true happiness. You are that source, my angel. I love you—love you. When I am near you nature is more beautiful. There is religion in the soft light of your eyes. There is the thrill of deep poetry in every sound of your voice. I do not come to you with pleading, for I feel that you love me—not because I have done you a service, but because our souls, waving in a perfumed atmosphere, touch each other."
"John."
"Yes, angel."
"You are the only human being who has ever understood me; you are the only human being whom I have ever understood. Yes, I do love you—loved you when I saw you with a child's primer in your hand—loved you when I saw you a grasping student of rhetoric. That we should love each other, seems to me as natural as that the sun should shine. It could be the only result of our association."