Bressant and Sophie were sitting one afternoon--it was in the first days
of September, and within less than a week of the time when they might
begin to expect Cornelia--upon the little rustic bench beside the
fountain. Their conversation had filtered softly into silence, and only
the flop-flop of the weak-backed little spout continued to prattle to
the stillness.
"I don't like it!" exclaimed Bressant, stirring his foot impatiently.
"I'd rather put my whole life into one strong, resistless shooting
upward, even if it lasted only a minute."
"The poor little fountain is happy enough," said well-balanced Sophie.
"To do any thing there must sometimes be a heat and fury in the blood;
or a whirl and passion in the brain. Volcanoes reveal the earth's
heart!" returned he, sententiously.
"They're very objectionable things though," suggested Sophie, arching
her eyebrows.
"They make beautiful mountains, whole islands, sometimes; in a man, they
show what stuff is in him. It would be better to commit a deadly crime
than to dribble out a life like that fountain's!"
"Even to speak of sin's bringing forth good, is a fearful and wicked
thing," said Sophie; and, although tears rose to her eyes, her voice was
almost stern. "But you don't know what you say: only think, and you
will shudder at it."
But Bressant was perverse. "I think any thing is better than to be
torpid. I'd rather know I could never hope for happiness hereafter, than
not have blood enough really to hope or despair at all."
"Why do you speak so?" asked Sophie, with a look of pain in her grave
little face. "Do you fear any such torpor in your own life? My love,
this hasn't always been so."
"I feel too much in me to manage, sometimes," said he, leaning forward
on his knees, and working in the sanded path with his foot. "I'm not
accustomed to myself yet: it will come all right, later. My health and
strength, too, so soon after my weakness--they intoxicate me, I think."
Sophie looked at his broad back and dark curly head, and brown, short
beard, as he sat thus beside her, and she grew pale, and sighed, "It
isn't right, dear," said she, shaking her head. "There is a quiet and
deep strength--not demonstrative--that is better than any passion: it is
less striking, I suppose, but it recognizes more a Power greater than
any we have."
"It's true--what you say always is true!" responded Bressant, throwing
himself back in the seat. "Sophie," he added, without turning his eyes
upon her, "if I shouldn't turn out all you wish, you won't stop loving
me?"
"I couldn't, I think, if I tried," replied she; and there was more of
regret than of satisfaction in her tone as she said it. "Or, if I could,
it would tear me all to pieces; and there would be nothing left but my
love to God, which is His already. All of me, except that, is love for
you."