“Why should that prevent me?”
“Isn’t cruelty stupid, unimaginative?”
“Often. But it can be brilliant, artful, intellectual, full of imagination. It can be religious. It can be passionate. It can be splendid. It can be almost everything.”
“Splendid!”
“Like Napoleon’s cruelty to France. But why should I educate you in abominable knowledge?”
“Oh,” said the girl, thrusting forward her firm little chin, “I have no faith in mere ignorance.”
“Yet it does a great deal for those who are not ignorant.”
“How?”
“It shows them how pretty, how beautiful even, sometimes, was the place from which they started for their journey through the world.”
Vere was silent for a moment. The sparkle of fun had died out of her eyes, which had become dark with the steadier fires of imagination. The strands of her thick hair, falling down on each side of her oval face, gave to it a whimsically mediaeval look, suggestive of legend. Her long-fingered, delicate, but strong little hands were clasped in her lap, and did not move. It was evident that she was thinking deeply.