"Why should he be cross to me?" "I know why, Nina, but I will not say. Uncle Anton has been out all the day, and was not home to dinner. It is much worse when he is away." "Is Anton ever cross to you, Ruth?" "Indeed he is--sometimes. He scolds much more than grandfather. But he is younger, you know." "Yes; he is younger, certainly." "Not but what he is very old, too; much too old for you, Nina. When I have a lover I will never have an old man." "But Anton is not old." "Not like grandfather, of course. But I should like a lover who would laugh and be gay. Uncle Anton is never gay. My lover shall be only two years older than myself. Uncle Anton must be twenty years older than you, Nina." "Not more than ten--or twelve at the most." "He is too old to laugh and dance." "Not at all, dear; but he thinks of other things." "I should like a lover to think of the things that I think about. It is all very well being steady when you have got babies of your own; but that should be after ever so long. I should like to keep my lover as a lover for two years. And all that time he should like to dance with me, and to hear music, and to go about just where I would like to go." "And what then, Ruth?" "Then? Why, then I suppose I should marry him, and become stupid like the rest. But I should have the two years to look back at and to remember. Do you think, Nina, that you will ever come and live here when you are married?" "I do not know that I shall ever be married, Ruth." "But you mean to marry uncle Anton?" "I cannot say. It may be so." "But you love him, Nina?" "Yes, I love him. I love him with all my heart. I love him better than all the world besides. Ruth, you cannot tell how I love him. I would lie down and die if he were to bid me." "He will never bid you do that." "You think that he is old, and dull, and silent, and cross. But when he will sit still and not say a word to me for an hour together, I think that I almost love him the best. I only want to be near him, Ruth." "But you do not like him to be cross." "Yes, I do. That is, I like him to scold me if he is angry. If he were angry, and did not scold a little, I should think that he was really vexed with me." "Then you must be very much in love, Nina?" "I am in love--very much." "And does it make you happy?" "Happy! Happiness depends on so many things. But it makes me feel that there can only be one real unhappiness; and unless that should come to me, I shall care for nothing. Good-bye, love. Tell your uncle that I was here, and say--say to him when no one else can hear, that I went away with a sad heart because I had not seen him." It was late in the evening when Anton Trendellsohn came home, but Ruth remembered the message that had been intrusted to her, and managed to find a moment in which to deliver it. But her uncle took it amiss, and scolded her. "You two have been talking nonsense together here half the day, I suppose."