Hazel glanced at him, and looked away.
'Up to a certain point,' she said, 'our views go side by side; we both call it a power.'
Dane was silent, with a certain sweet, grave silence, that evidently was not in want of thoughts. Hazel sat still too for a few minutes, knotting her little fingers together. She glanced at him again before she went on.
'But further than that, I do not understand. I think, generally, I have dressed to please myself,not often for a purpose; though I could do that, I suppose, upon occasion. That is, in my sort of way. But in yours, Mr. Rollo,I should get in such a labyrinth of black merino and green silk and blue velvet and white muslin, no line that ever was twisted would be long enough to guide me out.'
'There's a short way out,' said Rollo. 'I will not let you get into a labyrinth.'
'That may alter the case,' said Hazel with a half laugh. 'But just Prim's words, and the thought of your criticising my dress, put me in such confusion to-day that I was very near not getting dressed at all; and was ever so much ashamed of myself.' The fluttering white dress, by the way, had given place to one of the soft leaf-brown silks in which she delighted. Perhaps Rollo's eyes liked it too; for they took a complacent view and came back to her face with a smile.
'It is a problem, to be worked out,' he said.
'In my way, to your ends?' queried Hazel. 'The difference lying in the use or disposal of the power when in hand. Is that what you mean?'
'That will do. But sometimes it happens, that beauty of effect must give way before more important uses.'
'Why? And how?' she said looking at him.