woman at the end, would you be content to begin with the beginning? Would you play the part of that girl, and walk—with me—along the Stream of Life?"
He took her hand, but she made no reply, save that her eyes filled with tears. Presently she murmured,
"They are always happy—at the beginning and at the end. Did they know at the beginning that there would be an end?"
"They knew; everybody knew; the very children knew almost from infancy the great Law of Nature, that for everything there is the allotted end. They knew it."
"And yet they were always happy. I cannot understand it."
"We have destroyed that happiness," said the young man. "Love cannot exist when there is no longer end, or change, or anything to hope or fear—no mystery, nothing to hope or fear. What is a woman outside the Museum in the eyes of the College? She is only the half of humanity, subject to disease and requiring food at intervals. She no longer attracts men by the sacred mystery of her beauty. She is not even permitted any longer to make herself beautiful by her dress; nor is she allowed to create the feeling of mystery and the unknown by seclusion. She lives in the open, like the rest. We all live together; we know what each one says and thinks and does; nay, most of us have left off thinking and talking altogether."
But Christine was hardly listening; she could not understand this talk. She was looking at the pictures.
"Oh," she said, "they look so happy! There is such a beautiful contentment in their eyes! They love each other so, that they think of nothing but their love. They have forgotten the end."
"Nay, but look at the end."
