“I don’t want to be uncharitable,” she had said, innocently, to her friend. “And I don’t in the least believe the things people often say about society--the things Hector says, for instance; but really, Lisbeth, I have sometimes thought that the life behind all the glare and glitter was just the least bit stupid and hollow. I know I should get dreadfully tired of it, if I had nothing else to satisfy me; no real home-life, and no true, single-hearted, close friends to love, like you and mamma.”
It made Lisbeth wince, this pretty speech. Georgie Esmond often made her wince.
And Mr. Hector Anstruthers discovered this fact before any great length of time had passed, and the discovery awakened in him divers new sensations.
He had looked on at the growing friendship with a secret sneer; but the sneer was not at Georgie. Honestly, he liked the girl something the better for her affectionate credulity; nothing could contaminate her, not even Lisbeth Crespigny. But sometimes, just now and then, he found it a trifle difficult to control himself, and resist the impulse to be openly sarcastic.
He encountered this difficulty in special force one evening about a month after the studio luncheon. The girls had spent the afternoon together, and, dinner being over, Lisbeth was singing one of Georgie’s favorite songs. It was a love song, too, for though Miss Georgie had as yet had no practical experience in the matter of love, she had some very pretty ideas of that tender passion, and was very fond of love songs, and poems, and love stories, such as touched her heart, and caused her to shed a few gentle tears. And this song was a very pretty one, indeed. “All for love, and the world well lost,” was the burden of its guileless refrain. All for love, love which is always true, and always tender, and never deceives us. What is the world, it demanded, what is life, what rest can we find if we have not love? The world is our garden, and love is the queen of roses, its fairest bloom. Let us gather what flowers we may, but, oh, let us gather the rose first, and tend it most delicately. It will give its higher beauty to our lives; it will make us more fit for heaven itself; it will shame our selfishness, and help us to forget our sordid longings. All for love, and the world well lost. And so on, through three or four verses, with a very sweet accompaniment, which Georgie played with great taste.