“Yes, but how is one to understand what is meant by ‘true love’?” said the gentleman with the glittering eyes timidly and with an awkward smile.
“Everybody knows what love is,” replied the lady, evidently wishing to break off her conversation with him.
“But I don’t,” said the man. “You must define what you understand …”
“Why? It’s very simple,” she said, but stopped to consider. “Love? Love is an exclusive preference for one above everybody else,” said the lady.
“Preference for how long? A month, two days, or half an hour?” said the grey-haired man and began to laugh.
“Excuse me, we are evidently not speaking of the same thing.”
“Oh, yes! Exactly the same.”
“She means,” interposed the lawyer, pointing to the lady, “that in the first place marriage must be the outcome of attachment—or love, if you please—and only where that exists is marriage sacred, so to speak. Secondly, that marriage when not based on natural attachment—love, if you prefer the word—lacks the element that makes it morally binding. Do I understand you rightly?” He added, addressing the lady.
The lady indicated her approval of his explanation by a nod of her head.
“It follows …” the lawyer continued—but the nervous man whose eyes now glowed as if aflame and who had evidently restrained himself with difficulty, began without letting the lawyer finish: “Yes, I mean exactly the same thing, a preference for one person over everybody else, and I am only asking: a preference for how long?”
“For how long? For a long time; for life sometimes,” replied the lady, shrugging her shoulders.