“More intellectual?”
“No.”
“Of a better disposition?”
“I like yours, too.”
“More charming?”
“I find her so, saving your presence.”
“Please justify yourself in detail.”
He shook his head, still smiling. “My justification is not to be itemized. It lies deeper—in destiny, or fate, or whatever one calls it.”
“I see.” She offered Markham’s verses as an explanation:
“Perhaps we are led and our loves are fated,
And our steps are counted one by one;
Perhaps we shall meet and our souls be mated,
After the burnt-out sun.”