Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/286

 A lover leaves you, doesn't he? He doesn't love enough. That's our English feeling, perhaps. If you love a great deal, it can't be lightly. It's something grave. It lasts.' Jill's voice was trembling a little.

'But life may part lovers,' said Marthe Ludérac, and her voice now was cold and dark and heavy, as her gaze had been. 'Love need not be light to know itself measured. What is more grave than to be doomed to part?'

'Yes. That is true.' The sickening grief was creeping over Jill again, but still she struggled to accept Marthe's truth. 'Only—you must hide, mustn't you?—for that kind of love. You must lie. It must be difficult, I mean, to keep it beautiful.'

She had dropped her eyes to the hand she held and she could not raise them. They were heavy with the tears of her acceptance. And more than the bitter grief for the spoiled past was in her. When she heard that cold, dark, heavy voice, it made her think of Dick. As if far, far away, the warbler was singing still; but the happiness was gone.

Then she heard Marthe say: 'I have never had a lover.'

For a moment Jill was almost overwhelmed. Tears blinded her. She turned to her friend. She could not look at her, but she put her arms around her neck and whispered, 'Oh, Marthe—forgive me!'

'My friend. My dear, dear Jill,' Marthe Ludérac murmured. But she had taken Jill's arms and she gently put her away.