I cannot give any sense of that
talk, I cannot even tell how much of the delight of it was the magic of
her voice, the glow of her near presence. And always we walked swathed
warmly through a chilly air, along dim, interminable greasy roads--with
never a soul abroad it seemed to us, never a beast in the fields.
"Why do people love each other?" I said.
"Why not?"
"But why do I love you? Why is your voice better than any voice, your
face sweeter than any face?"
"And why do I love you?" she asked; "not only what is fine in you,
but what isn't? Why do I love your dullness, your arrogance? For I do.
To--night I love the very raindrops on the fur of your coat!"...
So we talked; and at last very wet, still glowing but a little tired,
we parted at the garden door. We had been wandering for two hours in our
strange irrational community of happiness, and all the world about us,
and particularly Lady Osprey and her household, had been asleep--and
dreaming of anything rather than Beatrice in the night and rain.
She stood in the doorway, a muffled figure with eyes that glowed.
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