Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/306

304 that night at the dinner. You even wore her colour—blue. She was stronger, more robust physically than you, but you have the same look of vitality, of life. There's so much vigour in your face—and when I saw you in Paris you looked as she did when I saw her the last time. She was in mourning then, and sad—but one felt that she couldn't be sad forever."

He spoke quietly, without emotion, and seemed more interested in Teresa than in what he was telling her.

"But—she but why"

"Why was it no good, you mean? Oh, it was very simple. She happened not to like me—preferred somebody else. Absurd, isn't it?"

"I don't understand that! She must have liked you!"

"You're very good. Or perhaps you believe that love wins love. It generally does. But in this case, you see, I didn't get her. … It was rather a knock-down blow. A man ought to succeed, you see, in that adventure. If he doesn't, he never feels quite sure afterward that he's the admirable creature he ought to be. Something has beaten him, and he rather expects to be beaten again."

"Again? But not in that way"

"Why not? Does one love only once and forever? … That may be, I grant you, when from being in love you come really to love—when