"What makes you say that?" I replied, and I don't believe my own voice was quite natural.
"Because I think you'd be happier," he answered—"and I want you to be happy." Then, for the first time, he looked at me, and his wonderful eyes were filled with a kind of yearning such as I never saw before. So different, indeed, from the look in Charlie's eyes, though nobody surely ever yearned more earnestly than Charlie.
"I'm about as happy now," I answered, "as any girl could hope to be."
He looked at me enquiringly, and I thought the paleness was deeper than before.
"Just like I am, I mean," I hastened to enlarge, "with a lovely house, and having a lovely time—and uncle and aunt and mother all so good to me."
"It isn't the same," he said.
"The same as what?" I pressed, knowing I should not. But I remember yet the thrill of peril and pain and joy that accompanied the words.
"The same as love—real love," he answered slowly. "It isn't the same at all—the other is a new life altogether. That's what makes life holy—and beautiful," he said, his voice so low I could scarcely hear. "That's the whole of life—every bit of it," he added softly.
I answered never a word. And in a moment he went on. "Yes, that's my highest wish for you, Miss Helen—that you may find a sphere worthy of you. For you'll forgive me, won't you, when I say you haven't found it yet? You've got a wonderful nature," he suddenly startled me with, "and you've got gifts and qualities that can be so useful, so wonderfully useful—and they can give you such deep happiness too," he went earnestly on, "if they only get a chance—if you only give them a chance; if they're developed, I mean. And nothing will ever ripen them but—but that."
"But what?" murmured I, who knew right well.