Page:Mary Stuart (Drinkwater).djvu/17

6 Boyd: Do you believe it?

Hunter: I don't know. How can it be?

Boyd: And some are great lovers. Do you want her love?

Hunter: That's absurd, Andrew.

Boyd: What is the most precious thing in the world to you? in your emotions?

Hunter: That is. You know.

Boyd: Or your sense of mastery in owning her?

Hunter: You can't refine things like that.

Boyd: But you must, or fall into the mere foolishness of life. You must answer yourself. Do you want to enjoy her love, or do you want to dominate it?

Hunter: How can I believe that what she gives to Finlay isn't taken from me?

Boyd: But suppose it were true. Suppose you had surety of that in your brain, that you could be certain in your heart that her love for him was no division, but a new thing—what then?

Hunter: I can't be sure.

Boyd: You don't want to be sure.

Hunter: You are an old man, Andrew, and my best friend.