“Well, whatever it was I saw it—and all that year those two types had been before my mind. Then when I was told that there were not two—that there was only one—it was like asking me to understand that the earth had only one pole, and that the North and the South Poles were identical.” She surprised me with the question, “Did you ever read _La Dame aux Camélias_?” I said I had, wondering at the connection. “Don’t you remember how it begins with the exhumation of the body of that poor woman six months after she was buried?” I recalled the fact. “So that all through the rest of the book, when Marguerite Gautier is at the height of her triumphs, if you call them triumphs, you see her as she was first shown to you. Well— Oh, don’t you understand? That’s the way I had to see—I had to see you!” I hung my head. “I understand perfectly, Regina—now.” “There’s so much we’re only beginning to understand now, both on your side and on mine.” “When it’s almost too late—if it isn’t quite.” Her manner, her voice, both of which had been a little piteous, took on a sudden energy. “Oh, as to that, I’ve been thinking it over—I’ve had to think over so much—and I don’t believe the word applies.” “Doesn’t apply?” I asked, in astonishment. “Why not—when it’s as late as it is? It’s just as if Fate had been making us a plaything.” “I don’t believe that. Life can’t be the sport of disorganized chance. If Romeo takes poison ten minutes before Juliet wakes it’s because the years behind them led up to the mistake.” “You mean that we reap only what we sow?” “And that life is as much a matter of development in a logical sequence as the growth of certain plants from certain seeds. It isn’t—it can’t be—a mere frenzy of haphazards. Things happen to us in a certain way because what we’ve done leaves them no other way.” “And was there no other way in which this could happen to you and me?” “Think! Isn’t it the very outcome that might have been expected from what we’ve been in the past?” I stared at her without comprehension. “Because of your past life,” she went on, “there was something you couldn’t tell me; and because I didn’t know it I’ve taken a step which my past life doesn’t allow me to retrace. Could anything be neater?” “And yet you’re fond of saying that the way things happen is the best way.” “It’s the best way if it’s the only way, isn’t it? I should go mad if I thought that my life hung on nothing but caprice—whether of luck or fate or anything you call God. I can stand my deserts, however hard, if I know they’re my deserts.” “You can stand this?” “This is not a question of standing; it’s one of working out. Life isn’t static; it’s dynamic—those are the right words, aren’t they? It’s always unfolding. One thing leads to the next thing; and then there must be times when a lot of things that seemed separate are gathered up in one immense result. Don’t you think it must be that way?” I said, stupidly, that I didn’t know.