"Why? I am in love. I dare believe she cares for me. It makes no difference to me who Clelia may be. That she is Clelia is enough—enough that she will be my wife. And when a man stands for the first time inside the gates of happiness with the girl he loves—what an ass he'd be to bother her about details!"
This was a totally new and unexpected Smith, to me. I never dreamed it was in him.
"Don't you agree with me?" he inquired.
I nodded doubtfully.
"Wouldn't you accept Thusis as she chose to offer herself?" he insisted.
A pang shot through me:
"Good Lord, yes!" I said. "I'd marry her if she were a beggar or a convict or the least creature of her sex. I'd never ask a question; I'd take thankfully and happily what she offered. You are right, Smith—wonderfully right. If you love, love! If you don't, worry!"
"Quite right," he said; "it's either love or worry; the genuine article doesn't admit of both. If you really love you are satisfied; if you worry it isn't love—it's merely something resembling it. Love is specific; there are sub-species and varieties, none the real thing. The acid test of love is contentment; baser metal dissolves in trouble, and the sediment is worry. I——"
"Oh, shut up!" I burst out, nervously; "you're too darned eloquent on the subject. Besides," I added with a perfectly new and instinctive suspicion, "you're so confoundedly contented with yourself that I believe you have begun to guess the identity of Clelia, and that it pleases you enormously!"
He reddened.