w how she
was going to be all that his wife ought to be, he had answered her:
"All I ask is that you be your own sweet self, for it is just you that I
want, you with your own thoughts and imaginings, and not a Guida who
has dropped her own way of looking at things to take on some one
else's--even mine. It's the people who try to be clever who never are;
the people who are clever never think of trying to be."

Was Philip right? Was she really, in some way, a little bit clever? She
would like to believe so, for then she would be a better companion for
him. After all, how little she knew of Philip--now, why did that thought
always come up! It made her shudder. They two would really have to begin
with the A B C of understanding. To understand was a passion, it was
breathing and life to her. She would never, could never, be satisfied
with skimming the surface of life as the gulls out there skimmed the
water.... Ah, how beautiful the morning was, and how the bracing air
soothed her feverishness! All this sky, and light, and uplifting
sea were hers, they fed her with their strength--they were all so
companionable.

Since Philip had gone--and that was but four days ago--she had sat down
a dozen times to write to him, but each time found she could not. She,
drew back from it because she wanted to empty out her heart, and yet,
somehow, she dared not. She wanted to tell Philip all the feelings that
possessed her; but how dared she write just what she felt: love and
bitterness, joy and indignation, exaltation and disappointment, all in
one? How was it these could all exist in a woman's heart at once? Was
it because Love was greater than all, deeper than all, overcame all,
forgave all? and was that what women felt and did always? Was that their
lot, their destiny? Must they begin in blind faith, then be plunged into
the darkness of disillusion, shaken by the storm of emotion, taste the
sting in the fruit of the tree of knowledge--and go on again the same,
yet not the same?

More or less incoherently these thoughts flitted through Guida's mind.
As yet her experiences were too new for her to fasten securely upon
their meaning. In a day or two she would write to Philip freely and
warmly of her love and of her hopes; for, maybe, by that time nothing
but happiness would be left in the caldron of feeling. There was a
packet going to England in three days--yes, she would wait for that.
And Philip--alas! a letter from him could not reach