Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/188

 "And if neither of them has asked for it, how shall I answer you?"

"But you know."

"I don't know. I know nothing about love, about men, about women, about myself even. It was terrible for me to believe that Philip Rondelet was a murderer, the hero of an ignoble intrigue, he seemed so refined, so pure-minded; but it is almost worse to find that Robert Feuardent's frank face and simple manner should mask a libertine and a Cain. I have seen too much of your men. I have gone below the surface of good manners and courtliness, and have found vice a thousand times uglier because it lies beneath so pleasant an exterior."

"Ah, my dear, you take these things too seriously. Men are the same all the world over,—north and south, east and west," Mrs. Harden commented.

"Then no more of them for me! Better, far better, the old quiet, colorless life."

"That can never come back to you, Margaret. It is past, even as your childhood is past. You can never be a child again; you can never go back to your marbles and be satisfied. The shadow of love is upon you, and life will never be the same to you again, my poor child."

The elder woman spoke seriously and gently, as Margaret had never heard her speak before, as