Her face was hidden upon his bosom. He felt the beating of her heart against his hand.
“If you have a genius for song, Margaret Cooper, I, too, am not without my boast. In my profession, men speak of my eloquence as that of a genius which has few equals, and no superior.”
“I know it—it must be so!”
“Move me not to boast, dear Margaret; it is in your ears only that I do so—and only to assure you that, in listening to my love, you do not yield to one utterly obscure, and wanting in claims, which, as yours must be finally, are already held to be established and worthy of the best admiration of the intelligent and wise. Do you hear me, Margaret?”
“I do, I do! It must be as you say. But of love I have thought nothing. No, no! I know not, Alfred Stevens, if I love or not—if I can love.”
“You mistake, Margaret. It is in the heart that the head finds its inspiration. Mere intellect makes not genius. All the intellect in the world would fail of this divine consummation. It is from the fountains of feeling that poetry drinks her inspiration. It is at the altars of love that the genius of song first bends in adoration. You have loved, Margaret, from the first moment when you sung. It did not alter the case that there was no object of sight. The image was in your mind—in your hope. One sometimes goes through life without ever meeting the human counterpart of this ideal; and the language of such a heart will be that of chagrin—distaste of life—misanthropy, and a general scorn of his own nature. Such, I trust, is not your destiny. No, Margaret, that is impossible. I take your doubt as my answer, and unless your own lips undeceive me, dearest Margaret, I will believe that your love is willing to requite my own.”
She was actually sobbing on his breast. With an effort she struggled into utterance.
“My heart is so full, my feelings are so strange—oh! Alfred Stevens, I never fancied I could be so weak.”
“So weak—to love! surely, Margaret, you mistake the word. It is in loving only that the heart finds its strength. Love is the heart's sole business; and not to exercise it in its duties is to impair its faculties, and deprive it equally of its pleasures and its tasks. Oh, I will teach you of the uses of this little heart of yours, dear Margaret—ay, till it grow big with its own capacity to teach. We will inform each other, every hour, of some new impulses and objects. Our dreams, our hopes, our fears, and our desires, ah! Margaret—what a study of love will these afford us. Nor to love only. Ah! dearest, when your muse shall have its audience, its numerous watching eyes and eager ears, then shall you discover how much richer will be the strain from your lips once informed by the gushing fullness of this throbbing heart.”
She murmured fondly in his embrace, “Ah! I ask no other eyes and ears than yours.”