“Perhaps you think too much,” she said.
“Perhaps! Who can help thinking when one has made mistakes. I hope to think some day for the benefit of others.”
“You would warn them?”
“Yes,” he said, with a sad simplicity; “that is the best use to which we can put our errors. But I am weary of psychology for the moment. Let us forget problems and be children.”
She looked over the world with half-closed lids, the sun beating upon her face.
“As you will,” she said, quietly; “and yet I think a time comes when it is impossible to be a child again, when the mind ceases to ebb and flow, but moves like a river perpetually towards the sea. The intense realism of life burns upon the brain and reduces the flimsier interests to ashes. Only the iron is left, and that is at white heat.”
“How do you know all this?” he asked.
“It is what life seems to be teaching me.”
“Yes,” he said, with a sudden, strange solemnity; “never more shall we be children on earth, for the heart of the child is tombed in the ice of knowledge. It is all plain to me now. Life is a grim thing to those who are only half strong. I have often thought of late that there is nothing left me worth living for.”
“Do you mean it?” she asked, almost hastily.