made. She did not return his
glance.

"In other words?" was her question.

"In other words," he answered in a tone of conviction, "friendship is
only a substitute for love, and cannot exist beside it unless lover and
friend be one and the same person. Friendship purely intellectual is a
fallacy, owing to the manifest imperfections of human nature. It must,
then, be an affair of the heart, whatever you may define that to be, and
cannot, therefore, exist at the same time with any other affair of the
heart without inevitable contradiction. How often has love separated old
friends, and friendship bred discord between lovers!"

"I never heard that argument before," said Margaret, who, to tell the
truth, was surprised at the result of the Doctor's discourse.

"What do you think of it?" he asked.

"I am not sure, but the point is interesting. I think you are a little
vague about what an 'affair of the heart,' as you call it, really is."

"I suppose an affair of the heart to be such a situation of the feelings
that the heart rules the head and the actions by the head. The prime
essence of love is that it should be complete, making no reservations
and allowing of no check from the reason."

"A dangerous state of things."

"Yes," said Claudius. "When the heart gets the mastery it knows neither
rest nor mercy. If the heart is good the result will be good, if it is
bad the result will be evil. Real love has produced incalculably great
results in the lives of individuals and in the life of the world."

"I suppose so," said Margaret; "but you made out friendship to be also
an 'affair of the heart,' so far as you believe in it at all. Is true
friendship as uncalculating as true love? Does it make no reservations,
and does it admit of no check from the reason?"

"I think, as I said, that friendship is a substitute for love, second
best in its nature and second best, too, in its unselfishness."

"Many people say love is selfishness itself."

"I know," answered the Doctor, and paused as if thinking.

"Do you not want to smoke?" asked Margaret, with a tinge of irony, "it
may help you to solve the difficulty."

"Thank you, no," said he, "the difficulty is solved, and it is no
difficulty at all. The people who say that do not know what they are
talking about, for they have never been in love themselves. Love, worth
the name, is complete; and being complete, demands the whole, and is
not satisfied with less than the whole an