“And in maturity we learn to fold our hands and stop our ears and take refuge in the commonplace.” The bishop’s tone was tinged with bitterness.
“Ah, no, no!” Egeria was vehement. “We learn that the Nile, with its dream-haunted shores, flows by our door; that wherever a patch of sunlight falls is beauty, wherever a morning-glory blows is art.”
The bishop fell in with her mood. “That is it. Maturity is nothing if it is not expansion.
“’Tis life of which our nerves are scant.
’Tis life, not death, for which we pant,
More life and fuller life.”
He loved to quote.
“Yes,” exclaimed Egeria, “‘more life, fuller life, more work, more play, more experience, more of the dreams that scale the stars, more of the splendid, inexorable life of earth. But”—looking at him doubtfully—“we are getting horribly didactic and prosy, and we are a thousand miles away from the feminine temperament.”
“Is there anything left of it?” inquired the bishop, mildly.
Egeria ignored him. “You have only expressed yourself guardedly, while I have talked and talked,” she complained.
“I shall be equally fluent.” The twinkle shone again in his eye. “But my opinion is given in confidence. I throw myself on your discretion.”
“Assuredly,” murmured Egeria.