“I only lost one—nobody ever loses both at the same time.”
She made this remark with embarrassment, and a nervous movement of the fingers. Seeing that the loss occurred whilst Stephen Smith was attempting to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, her confusion was hardly to be wondered at. The question had been awkward, and received no direct answer.
Knight seemed not to notice her manner.
“Oh, nobody ever loses both—I see. And certainly the fact that it was a case of loss takes away all odour of vanity from your choice.”
“As I never know whether you are in earnest, I don’t now,” she said, looking up inquiringly at the hairy face of the oracle. And coming gallantly to her own rescue, “If I really seem vain, it is that I am only vain in my ways—not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways.”
“An adroit distinction. Well, they are certainly the more objectionable of the two,” said Knight.
“Is vanity a mortal or a venial sin? You know what life is: tell me.”
“I am very far from knowing what life is. A just conception of life is too large a thing to grasp during the short interval of passing through it.”
“Will the fact of a woman being fond of jewellery be likely to make her life, in its higher sense, a failure?”
“Nobody’s life is altogether a failure.”