Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/263

Rh shall be as you choose, only somehow I think it's worse for me than for you. I loved you before—and now I adore you. I seem to have made a saint of you—but you've made me a man."

One wishes with all one's heart that that lunatic would die. The situation is, one would say—impossible. Yet the lovers do not find it so. They work together, and parish scandal has almost ceased to patter about their names. There is a subtle pleasure for both in the ceremonious courtesy with which ever since that day they treat each other. It contrasts so splendidly with the living flame upon each heart-altar. So far the mutual passion has improved the character of each. All the same, one wishes that the lunatic would die—for she is not so much of a saint as he thinks her, and he is more of a man than she knows.