Very clever people, in particular, find it tiring."
"I shall never marry," said Robina. "At least, I hope I sha'n't."
"Why 'hope'?" I asked.
"Because I hope I shall never be idiot enough," she answered. "I see
it all so clearly. I wish I didn't. Love! it's only an ugly thing
with a pretty name. It will not be me that he will fall in love
with. He will not know me until it is too late. How can he? It
will be merely with the outside of me--my pink-and-white skin, my
rounded arms. I feel it sometimes when I see men looking at me, and
it makes me mad. And at other times the admiration in their eyes
pleases me. And that makes me madder still."
The moon had slipped behind the wood. She had risen, and, leaning
against the porch, was standing with her hands clasped. I fancy she
had forgotten me. She seemed to be talking to the night.
"It's only a trick of Nature to make fools of us," she said. "He
will tell me I am all the world to him; that his love will outlive
the stars--will believe it himself at the time, poor fellow! He will
call me a hundred pretty names, will kiss my feet and hands. And if
I'm fool enough to listen to him, it may last"--she laughed; it was
rather an ugly laugh--"six months; with luck perhaps a year, if I'm
careful not to go out in the east wind and come home with a red nose,
and never let him catch me in curl papers. It will not be me that he
will want: only my youth, and the novelty of me, and the mystery.
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