The Three Fates. F. Marion Crawford

      “Why?”

      “Because you answer a question by a question.”

      “Is that a sign? How careful one should be! No—I will try to answer fairly. I think I am unprejudiced, but I like to look at people’s faces before I make up my mind about them.”

      “And when you have decided, do you change easily? Have you not a decided first impression to which you come back in spite of your judgment, and in spite of yourself?”

      “I do not know. I fancy not. I think I would rather not have anything of the kind. Why do you ask?”

      “Out of curiosity. I am not ashamed of being curious. Have you ever tried to think what the world would be like if nobody asked questions?”

      “It would be a very quiet place.”

      “We should all be asleep. Curiosity is only the waking state of the mind. We are all asking questions, all the time, either of ourselves, of our friends, or of our books. Nine-tenths of them are never answered, but that does not prevent us from asking more.”

      “Or from repeating the same ones—to ourselves,” said Constance.

      “Yes; the most interesting ones,”

      “What is most interesting?”

      “Always that which we hope the most and the least expect to have,” George answered. “We are talking psychology or something very like it,” he added with a dry laugh.

      “Is there any reason why we should not?” asked his companion. “Why do you laugh, Mr. Wood? Your laugh does not sound very heartfelt either.” She fixed her clear blue eyes on him for a moment.

      “One rarely does well what one has not practised before an audience,” he answered. “As you suggest, there is no reason why we should not talk psychology—if we know enough about it—that is to say, if you do, for I am sure I do not. There is no subject on which it is so easy to make smart remarks.”

      “Excepting our neighbour,” observed Constance.

      “I have no neighbours. Who is my neighbour?” asked George rather viciously.

      “I think there is a biblical answer to that question.”

      “But I do not live in biblical times; and I suppose my scratches are too insignificant to attract the attention of any passing Samaritan.”

      “Perhaps you have none at all.”

      “Perhaps not. I suppose our neighbours are ‘them that we love that love us,’ so the old toast says. Are they not?”

      “And those whom we ought to love, I fancy,” suggested Constance.

      “But we ought to love our enemies. What a neighbourly world it is, and how full of love it should be!”

      “Fortunately, love is a vague word.”

      “Have you never tried to define it?” asked the young man.

      “I am not clever enough for that. Perhaps you could.”

      George looked quickly at the young girl. He was not prepared to believe that she made the suggestion out of coquetry, but he was not old enough to understand that such a remark might have escaped from her lips without the slightest intention.

      “I rather think that definition ends when love begins,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “All love is experimental, and definition is generally the result of many experiments.”

      “Experimental?”

      “Yes. Do you not know many cases in which people have tried the experiment and have failed? It is no less an experiment if it happens to succeed. Affection is a matter of fact, but love is a matter of speculation.”

      “I should not think that experimental love would be worth much,” said Constance, with a shade of embarrassment. A very faint colour rose in her cheeks as she spoke.

      “One should have tried it before one should judge. Or else, one should begin at the other extremity and work backwards from hate to love, through the circle of one’s acquaintances.”

      “Why are you always alluding to hating people?” asked the young girl, turning her eyes upon him with a look of gentle, surprised protest. “Is it for the sake of seeming cynical, or for the sake of making paradoxes? It is not really possible that you should hate every one, you know.”

      “With a few brilliant exceptions, you are quite right,” George answered. “But I was hoping to discover that you hated some one, for the sake of observing your symptoms. You look so very good.”

      It would have been hard to say that the expression of his face had changed, but as he made the last remark the lines that naturally gave his mouth a scornful look were unusually apparent. The colour appeared again in Constance’s cheeks, a little brighter than before, and her eyes glistened as she looked away from her visitor.

      “I think you might find that appearances are deceptive, if you go on,” she said.

      “Should I?” asked George quietly, his features relaxing in a singularly attractive smile which was rarely seen upon his face. He was conscious of a thrill of intense satisfaction at the manifestation of the young girl’s sensitiveness, a satisfaction which he could not then explain, but which was in reality highly artistic. The sensation could only be compared to that produced in an appreciative ear by a new and perfectly harmonious modulation sounded upon a very beautiful instrument.

      “I wonder,” he resumed presently, “what form the opposite of goodness would take in you. Are you ever very angry? Perhaps it is rude to ask such questions. Is it?”

      “I do not know. No one was ever rude to me,” Constance answered calmly. “But I have been angry—since you ask—I often am, about little things.”

      “And are you very fierce and terrible on those occasions?”

      “Very terrible indeed,” laughed the young girl. “I should frighten you if you were to see me.”

      “I can well believe that. I am of a timid disposition.”

      “Are you? You do not look like it. I shall ask Mrs. Trimm if it is true. By-the-bye, have you seen her to-day?”

      “Not since we were here together.”

      “I thought you saw her very often. I had a note from her yesterday. I suppose you know?”

      “I know nothing. What is it?”

      “Old Mr. Craik is very ill—dying, they say. She wrote to tell me so, explaining why she had not been here.”

      George’s eyes suddenly gleamed with a disagreeable light. The news was as unexpected as it was agreeable. Not, indeed, that George could ever hope to profit in any way by the old man’s death; for he was naturally so generous that, if such a prospect had existed, he would have been the last to rejoice in its realisation. He hated Thomas Craik with an honest and disinterested hatred, and the idea the world was to be rid of him at last was inexpressibly delightful.

      “He is dying, is he?” he asked in a constrained voice.

      “You seem glad to hear it,” said Constance, looking at him with some curiosity.

      “I? Yes—well, I am not exactly sorry!” His laugh was harsh and unreal. “You could hardly expect me to shed tears—that is, if you know anything of my father’s misfortunes.”

      “Yes, I have heard something. But I am sorry that I was the person to give you the news.”

      “Why? I am grateful to you.”

      “I know you are, and that is precisely what I do not like. I do not expect you to be grieved, but I do not like to see one man so elated over the news of another man’s danger.”

      “Why not say, his death!” exclaimed George.

      Constance