"It is interesting to hear you express these views," he said bitterly, "considering what your experience has been."
"I don't see that my petty personal experience has anything to do with the truth of the matter," said Beth, bridling somewhat. "You really have a poor opinion of me if you think I shall allow my judgment to be warped by anything that may happen to myself. Because my own experience is not a happy one, you would have me declare that family life is a mistake! Doubtless many an outcry is raised for no better reason. But do you not see yourself that the tranquil home-life is the most beautiful, the most conducive to the development of all that is best in us—that there is nothing like the delight of being a member of a large and united family. Can you come into a house like this and not see it?"
"This house was not always a model of domestic felicity," he sneered.
"That proves my point," she rejoined. "The difficulties can be lived down if people are right-minded."
"Your argument does not alter the fact that I am a miserable man," he said dejectedly.
"You were not born to be a miserable man," she answered gently, "and 'we always may be what we might have been.' But you have lost much ground, Alfred Cayley Pounce, since the days when you roamed about the cliffs and sandy reaches of Rainharbour with Beth Caldwell, making plans. You had your ideals then, and lived up to them. You cultivated your flowers for delight in their beauty, and went to your modelling for love of the work. You gave your flowers to your friends with an honest intention to please; you modelled with honest ambition to do good work. In those days you were above caring to cultivate the acquaintance of the best people. You had touched the higher life at that time; you had felt such rapture in it as has never come to you since—even among the best people—I am sure; yet you fell away; you deserted Beth—not basely, perhaps, but weakly; and you have been deteriorating ever since."
He had started straight in his chair when she mentioned Beth Caldwell, and was staring at her now with puzzled intentness.
"What do you know about Beth?" he said quickly. "Have you ever met her?"
She smiled. "I can honestly say I never have," she answered. But she looked away from him into the fire as she spoke, and he recognised the set of her head on her shoulders as she turned it; he had noted it often.
"God!" he exclaimed, "what a blind idiot I have been—Beth! Beth!" He threw himself down on his knees beside her chair, caught her hand, and covered it with kisses.