he told you that. I felt that I never wanted to see him again—to be taken possession of—that wasn't what I meant. It is quite true that I had had a fancy that it might be amusing to be engaged. I have always had a curiosity about life, about different kinds of experience. I thought that I should have an entirely new set of feelings, and that this was to be the door to them. You can't imagine anything more childish, and stupid, and ignorant. I don't know why I am telling you all this. I hate myself for doing so."
"Don't do that," he said in a different manner from his former one. "I am very glad that you have told me."
"I have been trying to forget it all. I would never let myself think of it. I heard that he had died, but I did not know how. As I got to know other men, and saw for how little flirtation counted, and how soon they got over disappointments of that kind, I got to think less about it. And then I never felt deeply about anybody, and how could I know"
That anybody might come to feel deeply about you? And so you have gone on flirting with men, and liking them, perhaps, until they too have wanted to take possession of you, and then that fierce thing in you has roused up and has made you cruel. You have never yet met your match—quite."
The "quite" was an afterthought. He was thinking of Frank Hallett.
"I hope," he went on, "that you won't find your match after you are married. That would be the worst misfortune that could happen to you."
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"Because all that you have told me makes me certain that you have the capacity for a feeling which when it comes will almost frighten you."
"Could one be frightened of love?" she said softly. "I have often wished that I could really love someone."
"Don't wish it—unless you are quite certain that the man you love is worthy of your love and capable of giving you back all that you give—don't wish it unless you are certain, too, that the man you love can marry you."
