"Dear," he went on, "there's something wonderful about this. I've--" he stopped and cleared his throat. "I mean it's so exquisitely pure, so transcendently above passion. Last night, when I had you in my arms, it wasn't man and woman--it was soul and soul. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I know. Passion isn't love--any more than hunger is, but an earth-bound world seldom sees above the fog of sense."
"I could love you always," he returned, "and never so much as touch your hand or kiss you again."
She nodded, smiling full comprehension. Then she asked, briefly: "Why write?"
"Merely because we belong to one another in a divine sense, and marriage is the earthly sanction of it--or ought to be. If you and I were both free, and I thought marriage would in any way change this, I--I wouldn't ask you to marry me."
Rising from her chair, she bent over, kissed him on the forehead, went to the lattice, picked another rose, and came back. "See," she said, standing in the light; "life and beauty and joy--all in a rose."
"And love." She held it at arm's length. Sharply defined, the shadow fell upon the white floor of the veranda, perfect in line.
"And there," she continued, "is the same thing in another form. It is still a rose--anyone can see that. Only the colour and fragrance are gone, but one can remember both. To-morrow I'll write, and find out which we're to have--the rose, or the shadow of the rose."
"It's chance," he said, "like the tossing of a coin."
"Most things are," she reminded him. "Did you ever stop to think what destinies attend the opening or closing of a door?"
He made no answer. "Good-night," she said, with a smile.
"Good-night, my beloved." His face was illumined with "the light that never was on sea or land," but he did not even attempt to touch her hand.
"'Beauty,'" read Grandmother Starr, with due emphasis upon every word, "'is the birthright of every woman,'" She looked up from the pages of _The Household Guardian_ as she made this impressive announcement. Rosemary was busy in the kitchen, and Miss Matilda sat at the other window mending a three-cornered tear in last year's brown alpaca.
"'The first necessity of beauty is an erect carriage,'" she continued.
"That lets us out," commented Matilda, "not havin' any carriage at all."