eyes of those who care
enough for him to watch, one of two things--either he coldly admires
and esteems, or he loves with his whole heart and soul a woman worthy to
inspire such a love. Well, I did watch, and I was absurdly mistaken. I
imagined that I saw love, and rejoiced for the sake of both of you to
think so. I know that in all countries, our own as well as yours, love
is so morbidly sensitive and jealous that it is always apt to invent
imaginary foes to itself. Esteem and admiration never do that. I thought
that some misunderstanding, easily removed by the intervention of a
third person, might have impeded the impulse of two hearts towards each
other--and so I wrote. I had assumed that you loved--I am humbled to the
last degree--you only admired and esteemed."

"Your irony is very keen, Mrs. Morley, and to you it may seem very
just."

"Don't call me Mrs. Morley in that haughty tone of voice,--can't
you talk to me as you would talk to a friend? You only esteemed and
admired--there is an end of it."

"No, there is not an end of it," cried Graham, giving way to an
impetuosity of passion, which rarely, indeed, before another, escaped
his self-control; "the end of it to me is a life out of which is ever
stricken such love as I could feel for woman. To me true love can only
come once. It came with my first look on that fatal face--it has never
left me in thought by day, in dreams by night. The end of it to me
is farewell to all such happiness as the one love of a life can
promise--but--"

"But what?" asked Mrs. Morley, softly, and very much moved by the
passionate earnestness of Graham's voice and words.

"But," he continued with a forced smile, "we Englishmen are trained to
the resistance of absolute authority; we cannot submit all the elements
that make up our being to the sway of a single despot. Love is the
painter of existence, it should not be its sculptor."

"I do not understand the metaphor."

"Love colours our life, it should not chisel its form."

"My dear Mr. Vane, that is very cleverly said, but the human heart is
too large and too restless to be quietly packed up in an aphorism. Do
you mean to tell me that if you found you had destroyed Isaura Cicogna's
happiness as well as resigned your own, that thought would not somewhat
deform the very shape you would give to your life? Is it colour alone
that your life would lose?"

"Ah, Mrs. Morley, do not lower your friend into an ordinary girl in whom
i