"You know
I intend to go to Europe in a fortnight, ostensibly to see the
time-honored sights, to gloat over venerable art, and improve my mind
generally with such a broad view of experience, but Oh! what a blind
that is!" she exclaimed in mock indignation. "Of course everybody
knows that I am being sent out to seek my fortune, matrimonially
speaking. I am too rich, and too beautiful, and too accomplished to be
thrown away upon a self-made Canadian. I must go in search of
patrician smiles across the sea, and win them for a plausible cause."
She curled her lips into an expression of supreme disgust, as she
finished, and began to toy with the end of one golden braid.
"You don't mean half of what you say, Alice," I interposed quietly.
"Since you are not satisfied with all the good things the gods have
provided so far, I know only one other that can infuse a soul into
your vapid and savor less comforts. It is possible for your present
gloom to be dispelled by the warmth and brightness of a sunshine that
cheers the loneliest lives, and I think you can never be happy without
it."
"What is it?" she asked curtly.
"Love," I answered, "honest, stable, earnest love."
"Faugh!" she exclaimed, flinging her delicate braid away from her
caressing fingers, "is that all?"
"That is all, a mere trifle if you will, but it is the axis around
which men's temporal happiness revolves."
"Men's perhaps, but not women's," she added proudly.
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