“For how long?”
“Oh—ever so long. Days and days.”
“Days and days! Only days and days? Oh, the heart of a man! Days and days!”
“But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was not a full-blown love—it was the merest bud—red, fresh, vivid, but small. It was a colossal passion in posse, a giant in embryo. It never matured.”
“So much the better, perhaps.”
“Perhaps. But see how powerless is the human will against predestination. We were prevented meeting; we have met. One feature of the case remains the same amid many changes. You are still rich, and I am still poor. Better than that, you have (judging by your last remark) outgrown the foolish, impulsive passions of your early girl-hood. I have not outgrown mine.”
“I beg your pardon,” said she, with vibrations of strong feeling in her words. “I have been placed in a position which hinders such outgrowings. Besides, I don’t believe that the genuine subjects of emotion do outgrow them; I believe that the older such people get the worse they are. Possibly at ninety or a hundred they may feel they are cured; but a mere threescore and ten won’t do it—at least for me.”
He gazed at her in undisguised admiration. Here was a soul of souls!
“Mrs. Charmond, you speak truly,” he exclaimed. “But you speak sadly as well. Why is that?”
“I always am sad when I come here,” she said, dropping to a low tone with a sense of having been too demonstrative.