“But, Laura,” urged Mrs. Cressler, “you love Curtis, don’t you? You⁠—you’re such a strange girl sometimes. Dear child, talk to me as though I were your mother. There’s no one in the world loves you more than I do. You love Curtis, don’t you?”

Laura hesitated a long moment.

“Yes,” she said, slowly at length. “I think I love him very much⁠—sometimes. And then sometimes I think I don’t. I can’t tell. There are days when I’m sure of it, and there are others when I wonder if I want to be married, after all. I thought when love came it was to be⁠—oh, uplifting, something glorious like Juliet’s love or Marguerite’s. Something that would⁠—” Suddenly she struck her hand to her breast, her fingers shut tight, closing to a fist. “Oh, something that would shake me all to pieces. I thought that was the only kind of love there was.”