Page:Tales of John Oliver Hobbes.djvu/126

 "Passion is—is Shelley and that sort of thing," said George, largely.

"I see. That explains what mama meant once when she told me never to mention it. She said it was a man's expression: that ladies never spoke of it. I was very young and inexperienced at the time, and I didn't understand her. But I don't think that girls ought to read poetry. It only fills their heads with ideas, and perhaps hopes, which can never be realized. Mama was right."

"Why do you say 'never realized' so sadly?"

"Was I sad?"

"Very."

She played a wrong note. "One cannot help thinking," she said.

"Thinking what, Grace?"

"Of things," she said.

"I, too, think of things," he said, eagerly. "I think how different they might have been."

"It is too late now," she murmured, "we mustn't."

"I suppose we mustn't."

"We ought not," said Grace, severely.

"Thoughts will come," said George; "they're the very devil for coming."

"We won't talk about it," said Grace.

"I'm not sure that it isn't better to face facts and thresh them out," said George, who was pacing the floor.

"It requires so much courage, and I dare not."

George knelt by her side and took both her hands.

"You dare not? Then, Grace, you do—"

"Yes, I do—" Her face was so near and so pink he thought it was folly not to kiss her.