'Oh yes, you will,' she repeated. 'It is inevitable. The only thing I am not sure about is how I shall take it. It will all depend, I think, on whether you confide in me, or hide it from me.'
'It would be a strange thing to confide in you!'
'Not at all. That is a conventional idea, and the idea of a stupid man. You are not stupid. I should certainly be the person most interested in knowing such a fact, and if you did tell me frankly, I think—I think I should be unconventional and clever enough not to quarrel with you. I think I should understand. But if you hid it from me, then——'
The look passed over her face which the dead Napraxine had used to fear as a hound fears the whip, and which Othmar had never seen.
'Then, I give you leave to deal me any death you like with your own hand,' he said with a laugh, which was a little forced because a certain chill had passed over him.
She laughed also.
'Well, be wise,' she said as she rose; 'you are warned in time. Oh, my dear Otho, you grant yourself that every passion is finite. I think it is; but I think also that the wise people, when it fades, make it leave friendship and sympathy behind it, as the beautiful blowing yellow corn when it is cut leaves the wheat. The foolish people let it leave all kinds of rancour, envy, and uncharitableness, as the brambles and weeds when they are burnt only leave behind them a foul smoke. But it is so easy to be philosophic in theory!'
'Your philosophy far exceeds mine,' said Othmar with a little impatience. 'I have not yet reached the period at which I can calmly contemplate my green April fields laid sear to give corn to the millstones; they are all in flower with the poppy and the campion.'
'Very prettily said,' replied his wife. 'You really are a poet at heart.'
Othmar went out from her presence that day with a vague sense of depression and of apprehension.