In her other lovers she knew her words would have provoked vehement protestation. But for her it was part of the charm of Corthell’s attitude that he never did or said the expected, the ordinary. Just now he seemed more interested in the effect of his love for Laura upon himself than in the manner of her reception of it.

“It is curious,” he continued. “I am no longer a boy. I have no enthusiasms. I have known many women, and I have seen enough of what the crowd calls love to know how futile it is, how empty, a vanity of vanities. I had imagined that the poets were wrong, were idealists, seeing the things that should be rather than the things that were. And then,” suddenly he drew a deep breath: “ this happiness; and to me . And the miracle, the wonderful is there⁠—all at once⁠—in my heart, in my very hand, like a mysterious, beautiful exotic. The poets are wrong,” he added. “They have not been idealists enough. I wish⁠—ah, well, never mind.”