“Is it all over—the joy and the venture?”
“I seem to have died, instead of gaining freedom.”
“That word! How it deceives us! You have chased a shadow.”
“You mean?”
“There is no freedom and every one is free. It is all a matter of feeling. And that feeling you cannot command.”
“Like love.” She glanced up at him, her face thrilling with a strange idea.
“Yes, like love,” he repeated in a low voice. “It takes us unawares when we have given up the search.”
“Then I have never loved.” Her mind revolved in a new orbit “When I married I was seeking, seeking. When I studied, when I tried to act, I was always seeking. And the more I have struggled the farther I have gone—away, astray. Even the first false light that shone those September days when the pictures spoke, went, and I am left alone with my little knowledge, and nothing else, nothing. It is like love,” she repeated at last.
“Yes. It is a state of feeling, of the spirit, not a condition of person.”
“I was as free in Chicago as I am here?”