"
"So you do love me a little?"
"If you were not something more to me than any other man in the world, do
you think--" She paused. "I love you when I see you; but when you are
away from me I hate you."
"Then I fear I must be singularly invisible at the present moment," he
said. Possibly if you were to look less fixedly into the fire you might
perceive me."
He moved his chair slightly, so as to come between her and the firelight.
She raised her eyes to his face.
"If you do love me," he asked her, "why will you not marry me?"
"Because, if I had been married to you for a year I should have come to my
senses and seen that your hands and your voice are like the hands and the
voice of any other man. I cannot quite see that now. But it is all
madness. You call into activity one part of my nature; there is a higher
part that you know nothing of, that you never touch. If I married you,
afterward it would arise and assert itself, and I should hate you always,
as I do now sometimes."
"I like you when you grow metaphysical and analytical," he said, leaning
his face upon his hand. "Go a little further in your analysis; say, 'I
love you with the right ventricle of my heart, but not the left, and with
the left auricle of my heart, but not the right; and, this being the case,
my affection for you is not of a duly elevated, intellectual and spiritual
nature.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313