we ought to love our enemies. What a neighbourly world it is, and how full of love it should be!”
“Fortunately, love is a vague word.”
“Have you never tried to define it?” asked the young man.
“I am not clever enough for that. Perhaps you could.”
George looked quickly at the young girl. He was not prepared to believe that she made the suggestion out of coquetry, but he was not old enough to understand that such a remark might have escaped from her lips without the slightest intention.
“I rather think that definition ends when love begins,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “All love is experimental, and definition is generally the result of many experiments.”
“Experimental?”
“Yes. Do you not know many cases in which people have tried the experiment and have failed? It is no less an experiment if it happens to succeed. Affection is a matter of fact, but love is a matter of speculation.”
“I should not think that experimental love would be worth much,” said Constance, with a shade of embarrassment. A very faint colour rose in her cheeks as she spoke.
“One should have tried it before one should judge. Or else, one should begin at the other extremity and work backwards from hate to love, through the circle of one’s acquaintances.”
“Why are you always alluding to hating people?” asked the young girl, turning her eyes upon him with a look of gentle, surprised protest. “Is it for the sake of seeming cynical, or for the sake of making paradoxes? It is not really possible that you should hate every one, you know.”
“With a few brilliant exceptions, you are quite right,” George answered. “But I was hoping to discover that you hated some one, for the sake of observing your symptoms. You look so very good.”
It would have been hard to say that the expression of his face had changed, but as he made the last remark the lines that naturally gave his mouth a scornful look were unusually apparent. The colour appeared again in Constance’s cheeks, a little brighter than before, and her eyes glistened as she looked away from her visitor.
“I think you might find that appearances are deceptive, if you go on,” she said.
“Should I?” asked George quietly, his features relaxing in a singularly attractive smile which was rarely seen upon his face. He was conscious of a thrill of intense satisfaction at the manifestation of the young girl’s sensitiveness, a satisfaction which he could not then explain, but which was in reality highly artistic. The sensation could only be compared to that produced in an appreciative ear by a new and perfectly harmonious modulation sounded upon a very beautiful instrument.
“I wonder,” he resumed presently, “what form the opposite of goodness would take in you. Are you ever very angry? Perhaps it is rude to ask such questions. Is it?”
“I do not know. No one was ever rude to me,” Constance answered calmly. “But I have been angry—since you ask—I often am, about little things.”
“And are you very fierce and terrible on those occasions?”
“Very terrible indeed,” laughed the young girl. “I should frighten you if you were to see me.”
“I can well believe that. I am of a timid disposition.”
“Are you? You do not look like it. I shall ask Mrs. Trimm if it is true. By-the-bye, have you seen her to-day?”
“Not since we were here together.”
“I thought you saw her very often. I had a note from her yesterday. I suppose you know?”
“I know nothing. What is it?”
“Old Mr. Craik is very ill—dying, they say. She wrote to tell me so, explaining why she had not been here.”
George’s eyes suddenly gleamed with a disagreeable light. The news was as unexpected as it was agreeable. Not, indeed, that George could ever hope to profit in any way by the old man’s death; for he was naturally so generous that, if such a prospect had existed, he would have been the last to rejoice in its realisation. He hated Thomas Craik with an honest and disinterested hatred, and the idea the world was to be rid of him at last was inexpressibly delightful.
“He is dying, is he?” he asked in a constrained voice.
“You seem glad to hear it,” said Constance, looking at him with some curiosity.
“I? Yes—well, I am not exactly sorry!” His laugh was harsh and unreal. “You could hardly expect me to shed tears—that is, if you know anything of my father’s misfortunes.”
“Yes, I have heard something. But I am sorry that I was the person to give you the news.”
“Why? I am grateful to you.”
“I know you are, and that is precisely what I do not like. I do not expect you to be grieved, but I do not like to see one man so elated over the news of another man’s danger.”
“Why not say, his death!” exclaimed George.
Constance was silent for a moment, and then looked at him as she spoke.
“I hardly know you, Mr. Wood. This is only the second time I have seen you, and I have no right to make remarks about your character. But I cannot help thinking—that——”
She hesitated, not as though from any embarrassment, but as if she could not find the words she wanted. George made no attempt to help her, though he knew perfectly well what she wanted to say. He waited coldly to see whether she could complete her sentence.
“You ought not to think such things,” she said suddenly, “and if you do, you ought not to show it.”
“In other words, you wish me to reform either my character or my manners, or both? Do you know that old Tom Craik ruined my father? Do you know that after he had done that, he let my father’s reputation suffer, though my father was as honest as the daylight, and he himself was the thief? That sounds very dramatic and theatrical, does it not? It is all very true nevertheless. And yet, you expect me to be such a clever actor as not to show my satisfaction at your news. All I can say, Miss Fearing, is that you expect a great deal of human nature, and that I am very sorry to be the particular individual who is fated to disappoint your expectations.”
“Of course you feel strongly about it—I did not know all you have just told me, or I would not have spoken. I wish every one could forgive—it is so right to forgive.”
“Yes—undoubtedly,” assented George. “Begin by forgiving me, please, and then tell me what is the matter with the worthy Mr. Craik.”
“Mrs. Trimm seems to think it is nervous prostration—what everybody has nowadays.”
“Is she very much cut up?” George asked with an air of concern.
“She writes that she does not leave him.”
“Nor will—until——” George stopped
