Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/142

 Madame Koller stood up, and as she did so, she sighed deeply. Olivia, for the first time, felt sorry for her.

"Women who love are foolish, desperate, suicidal—anything. I do not think that you could ever love."

"Do you think that? I know better. I could love—but not like—not like—"

"Not like me?"

"Yes, since you have said it. Something—something—would hold me back from what you speak of so openly."

"I always said you were as nearly without feeling as the rest of the people here. Elizabeth Pembroke is the only woman I know of, among all of us, that ever really loved. But see how curious it was with her. She defied her father's curses—yet she did not have the nerve to marry the man she truly loved, because he happened to be an officer in the Union army, for fear the Peytons and the Coles, and the Lesters, and the rest of them, would have turned their backs on her at church. Bah!"

"I don't think it was want of nerve on Elizabeth Pembroke's part," replied Olivia. "She was not born to be happy."

"Nor was I," cried Madame Koller, despondently.

There was no more said for a minute or two. Then Madame Koller spoke again.

"Now you know what I feel. I don't ask anything for myself—I only wish to show you that you will ruin Pembroke if you marry him."