"Well?"
"I kissed them," he rejoined, rather shamefacedly.
"But you had hardly ever seen me except in the dusk?"
"Never mind. I was young then, and I kissed them. I wondered how I
could make the most of my trouvaille, and decided that I would call at
your hotel with them that afternoon. It rained, and I waited till next
day. I called, and you were gone."
"Yes," answered she, with dry melancholy. "My mother, knowing my
disposition, said she had no wish for such a chit as me to go falling
in love with an impecunious student, and spirited me away to Baden. As
it is all over and past I'll tell you one thing: I should have sent you
a line passing warm had I known your name. That name I never knew till
my maid said, as you passed up the hotel stairs a month ago, 'There's
Dr. Fitzpiers.'"
"Good Heaven!" said Fitzpiers, musingly. "How the time comes back to
me! The evening, the morning, the dew, the spot. When I found that
you really were gone it was as if a cold iron had been passed down my
back. I went up to where you had stood when I last saw you--I flung
myself on the grass, and--being not much more than a boy--my eyes were
literally blinded with tears. Nameless, unknown to me as you were, I
couldn't forget your voice."
"For how long?"
"Oh--ever so long. Days and days."
"Days and days! ONLY days and days? Oh, the heart of a man! Days and
days!"
"But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was
not a full-blown love--it was the merest bud--red, fresh, vivid, but
small. It was a colossal passion in posse, a giant in embryo. It
never matured."
"So much the better, perhaps."
"Perhaps. But see how powerless is the human will against
predestination. We were prevented meeting; we have met. One feature
of the case remains the same amid many changes. You are still rich,
and I am still poor. Better than that, you have (judging by your last
remark) outgrown the foolish, impulsive passions of your early
girl-hood. I have not outgrown mine."
"I beg your pardon," said she, with vibrations of strong feeling in her
words. "I have been placed in a position which hinders such
outgrowings. Besides, I don't believe that the genuine subjects of
emotion do outgrow them; I believe that the older such people get the
worse they are. Possibly at ninety or a hundred they may feel they are
cured; but a mere threescore and ten won't do it--at least for me."