"But, of course, we have perfect trust in each other," said Rosalind presently, with charming illogicality.
"No doubt," I said; "but Love, like a good householder (ahem!), does well not to live too much on trust."
"But surely love means perfect trust," said Rosalind.
"Theoretically, yes; practically, no. On the contrary, it means exactly the opposite. Trust, perfect trust, with loved ones far away! No, it is an inhuman ideal, and the more one loves the less one lives up to it. If not, what do these tears mean?"
"Oh, no!" Rosalind retorted, with a flush, "you mustn't say that. I trust Orlando absolutely. It isn't that; it's simply that I can't bear to be away from him."
What women mean by "trusting" might afford a subject for an interesting disquisition. However, I forbore to pursue the matter, and answered Rosalind's remark in a practical spirit.
"Well, then," I said, "if that's all, the thing to do is to find Orlando, tell him that you cannot bear it, and spend the rest of your holiday, you and he, together."
"That's what I thought," said Rosalind.
"Unfortunately," I continued, "owing to your foolish arrangement not to tell each other where you were going and not to write, as being incompatible with Perfect Trust, you don't know where Orlando is at the present moment."
"No; but I have a good guess," said Rosalind. "There's a smart little watering-place, not so many miles from here, called Yellowsands, a sort of secret little Monaco, which not many people know of, a wicked-innocent gay little place, where we've often talked of going. I think it's very likely that Orlando has gone there; and that's just where I was going when we met."