Returning from Mount
Ida after a long absence, after presenting in imagination the fairest
of women with the apple, I said:
"You asked me whom I had been in love with; now tell me with whom have
you been in love?"
"For the last three years I have been engaged to be married."
"And you are still engaged?"
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the blue sea, and I said laughing, that
it was not of a marriage or an engagement to be married that I spoke,
but of the beautiful, irrepressible caprice.
"You wouldn't have me believe that no passion has caught you and
dragged you about for the last five years, just as a cat drags a
little mouse about?"
"It is strange that you should ask me that, for that is exactly what
happened."
"Really?"
"Only that I suffered much more than any mouse ever suffered."
"Doris, tell me. You know how sympathetic I am; you know I shall
understand. All things human interest me. If you have loved as much as
you say, your story will ... I must hear it."
"Why should I tell it?" and her eyes filled with tears. "I suffered
horribly. Don't speak to me about it. What is the good of going over
it all again?"
"Yes, there is good; very much good comes of speaking, if this love
story is over, if there is no possibility of reviving it.
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