“Oh, no,” said Clytie, shaking her head and looking before her. “You can't understand,--and perhaps it is better you shouldn't,--what a letter like that means to a woman. Well, it meant a great deal to me. To tell you so is the only return I can make you.” “Don't let us talk of it,” said Kent. “I could not bear to have you as a friend under false pretences.” After they had walked a few steps in silence she continued the subject. “Don't you think it would be better for you to forget all about me, and look around for someone who can make you happy--really happy?” “I'd have to live till the day of judgment to find her,” said Kent bluntly. “That's ridiculous, Kent. But can't you feel that it sometimes pains me to see you sacrificing your life for me?” “I am not sacrificing my life,” he answered cheerfully. “Besides, I don't quite see what it has got to do with you--in one sense. I love you, and I couldn't love anybody else for all the joys in creation. Thank God, you are broad-minded enough to let me tell you this without any chance of misconstruction.” “Ah! That's all very well,” she said, with a little sigh. “If I were a saint, I might placidly accept it as my due. Being only a woman, and that none of the best, it seems such a waste of good love, Kent, and love is a rare, rare thing in the world.” “But it would go a-begging if you did not have it,” he replied, laughing. “Come, don't let us say anything more about it. You are happy with your own home and interests, and I am happy in seeing you and having your friendship. Of course I have suffered a bit, but it's all over now.” “Ah!” she said. “Life seems to be made up of that.” “Of what?” “Suffering.” He waved an energetic protest with his ash stick. “Since when have _you_ grown a pessimist? I don't believe in it. Life is made up of responsibilities and interests. There's suffering in it of course; but there are alleviations. It's like cold and frost. If you stood up without a rag on in the snow you'd think the world was made of nothing else but frost. But you put on warm clothing and defy it.” “But the poor, ill-clad, shivering wretches--what about them?” “I'm talking of people with average material wealth,” he replied. “That's just it. So can the people of ordinary moral wealth clothe themselves against suffering. I don't like the morbid view of things. It doesn't do any good. Do you remember a passage in Longfellow's 'Hyperion'--a criticism of two German poets--'melancholy gentlemen to whom life was only a dismal swamp, upon whose margin they walked with cambric handkerchiefs in their hands, sobbing and sighing, and making signals to Death to come and ferry them over the lake'? It's a bit fierce on your pessimists; but it's a wholesome little passage to remember.”