Miss Lady, sitting with her elbows on the table and her chin on her palms, flashed a strange, questioning glance at him. “Do you believe in love, Doctor?” “Why, of course, you foolish girl, in all its manifestations, filial, paternal, marital. Assuredly I do.” “But I mean that other kind, the kind that makes a little heaven for a man and woman here on earth, that answers all their longings, so that nothing else matters, just so they have each other. I read about it in novels and in poetry, but I don't see it. The married people I know take each other as much for granted as they do their hands and feet. That's not what love means to me.” The Doctor smiled indulgently. “Wait until you have passed the sentimental age before you give your verdict! Most young ladies imagine that because love does not arrive, full panoplied on a snow-white steed, that it is not love. You, probably, like the rest, have read too many romantic novels. When you come to know life better you will realize that moral equality and intellectual affinity promise a much safer union than a violent romantic attachment.” She regarded him as earnestly as if he had been the fount of all wisdom. “How long does it usually last?” she asked. “Last?” he repeated. “The sentimental age. I suppose a girl ought to get through it by the time she is twenty. But I never do things on time. I didn't even know I was sentimental until you told me. I have learned a great many things since you came.” “There were some things you did not need to learn,” said the Doctor quietly. “Kindness and sympathy, and rare understanding. I shall always look back with pleasure to these quiet weeks spent under your father's roof. They have given me the only chance I have had in years for undisturbed writing on the History that will stand for my life work. I must confess that I dread my return home. The noise and confusion, the constant invasion of my privacy, the demands upon my time, appal me. Very few realize the magnitude of my work, and the necessity it lays upon me for isolating myself. You have been singularly sympathetic and helpful in that respect.” “But think what your being here has meant to me! You came into my life just when everything else seemed to drop out. You explained things to me, and gave me something to do. You can't begin to know how you have helped me.” “I have only tried to direct and suggest,” the Doctor said; “in short to take the place--” “Of a father,” finished Miss Lady enthusiastically. The Doctor tapped his foot impatiently. After all her father was a much older man than he: the distance, at that moment, between forty and sixty seemed infinitely greater than that between forty and twenty.