" And I sat pondering, trying to discover if she applied
the phrase to herself or to the place where she was staying. How could
it apply to the place? All places would be a paradise if----
At the close of a long December evening I wrote a letter, the answer
to which would decide whether I should go to her, whether I should
undertake the long journey. "The journey back will be detestable," I
muttered, and taking up the pen again I wrote: "Your letter contains a
phrase which fills me with dismay: you say, 'Virtue must be its own
reward,' and this would seem that you are determined to be more
aggressively Platonic than ever. Doris, this is ill news indeed; you
would not have me consider it good news, would you?"
Other letters followed, but I doubt if I knew more of Doris's
intentions when I got into the train than I did when I sat pondering
by my fireside, trying to discover her meaning when she wrote that
vile phrase, "Virtue must be its own reward." But somehow I seemed to
have come to a decision, and that was the main thing. We act obeying a
law deep down in our being, a law which in normal circumstances we are
not aware of. I asked myself as I drove to the station, if it were
possible that I was going to undertake a journey of more than a
thousand miles in quest--of what? Doris's pretty face! It might be
pretty no longer; yet she could not have changed much.
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