“What then will become of your love?” she asked.
Margaret’s lips trembled as a sigh escaped them. “Ah, Love, sweet entrancing Love! Imelda, he is a fickle boy; promising you heavenly bliss to entice you into his meshes. They sound so fair, these promises, so bewitching in the rosy hue he weaves about them, until——”
“Until what?”
“Until you permit his alluring voice to entice you into those rose-woven and satin-covered fetters called marriage bonds. Then, in a most tantalizing manner, after all loopholes of escape have been closed, he takes his departure with mocking laughter and leaves you only the blackness of despair. Your weak hands are not powerful enough to hold him with all the man-made laws of the land. He comes to us all unsought, in rose-strewn dreams. If you would retain his blissful presence you must meet him full of trust and confidence. Fetter this laughing, happy boy and he will slip from between your clinging, clutching fingers. In spite of yourself he is gone. You are alone, bound to a loathsome corpse. Never again will the sweet little cajoler walk by your side, in the old form, to soothe your aching heart with his warm perfumed breath. And if ever, in very pity for you, he shall make the attempt to draw near in another form, to warm your frozen heart, you are forced by the cruel laws of a cruel society with your own trembling hands to murder him.
“Marry? No! I may enjoy a lover’s love, may mount with him to realms of bliss, and when the time comes that we have outgrown each other, the time when one may be mounting too fast for the other to keep up, as when one becomes a weight, clogging the footsteps of the other, then at least, no unnatural fetters will have bound us. We can still follow our own sweet wills, and should Love again with his winsome wiles approach me with his golden dreams, I shall then be free to clasp him in my embrace. I may once again be happy in the sunshine he is sure to bring with him, and shed around him.”
Awestruck Imelda listened. Margaret’s cheeks were glowing with excitement. Her eyes shone with a splendor Imelda had never noted there before, while the look in them seemed far-away. Where were her thoughts? What visions floated before her mind? Was it the lover she spoke of, with whom she was mounting to unknown heights of bliss, or was she looking into the far-away future where he was the same, and yet not the same? When Love shall have taken upon himself a different guise than he at present wears? Who knows? Imelda listened spellbound to this dreaming girl, almost fearing to break the silence that ensued.
“Margaret, who taught you that? Where did you learn to hold such views of love and marriage?”
Almost instantly the entranced look faded from the face of the beautiful blonde. That most holy glow gave way to a sickly pallor. The lips quivered like those of a grieved child, and the eyes filled with tears.
“Experience,” she faltered.
“Experience? You?”