“But it's all nonsense,” she added. “And very contemptible, just because it's a close day, with a stuffy dinner-party looming ahead.”
“Phases of morale are never nonsense,” he replied. “No one knows what unrest is better than I. We must find the remedy.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Happiness.”
“What is happiness?”
“The pursuit of the ideal on the wings of—”
“Of what?”
“Dare I say it—in all delicacy? Of love.” Ella again turned her face aside, uncertain whether to resent the implication or to make a light answer. Her hesitation was his opportunity.
“I, too, have been feeling depressed of late,” he said. “All pleasure has in time to be paid for with pain. In a few months our scheme will be launched,—the scheme that you and I have built up with pieces of our hearts,—and I shall go away to end my life in carrying out its working. I shall be alone. My helper and sweet comrade will no longer be by my side. Thus I, too, sigh for happiness.”
He smiled sadly, but she saw that his eyes were regarding her keenly from behind his gold pince-nez.