"
A silence followed. It was broken by the philosopher.
"Is that all you wanted my opinion about, Miss May?" he asked,
with his finger between the leaves of the treatise on ontology.
"Yes, I think so. I hope I haven't bored you?"
"I've enjoyed the discussion extremely. I had no idea that
novels raised points of such psychological interest. I must find
time to read one."
The girl had shifted her position till, instead of her full face,
her profile was turned toward him. Looking away toward the
paddock that lay brilliant in sunshine on the skirts of the apple
orchard, she asked, in low, slow tones, twisting her hands in her
lap:
"Don't you think that perhaps, if B found out afterward--
when she had married A, you know--that she had cared for him so
very, very much, he might be a little sorry?"
"If he were a gentleman, he would regret it deeply."
"I mean--sorry on his own account; that--that he had thrown away
all that, you know?"
The professor looked meditative.
"I think," he pronounced, "that it is very possible he would. I
can well imagine it."
"He might never find anybody to love him like that again," she
said, gazing on the gleaming paddock.
"He probably would not," agreed the philosopher.
"And--and most people like being loved, don't they?"
"To crave for love is an almost universal instinct, Miss May."
"Yes, almost," she said, with a dreary little smile.
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