"Some day you will be a
woman, Melicent, and then you will be loving some man or another man. I
could hope that you will then love the man who will make you happy, but
that sort of man has not yet been found."
Dom Manuel came to her, not heeding the accursed beasts at all, and he
took both the hands of Freydis in his hands. "My dear, and do you think
I am a happy man?"
She looked up at him: when she answered, her voice trembled. "I made you
happy, Manuel. I would have made you happy always."
"I wonder if you would have? Ah, well, at all events, the obligation was
upon me. At no time in a man's life, I find, is there lacking some
obligation or another: and we must meet each as we best can, not hoping
to succeed, just aiming not to fall short too far. No, it is not a merry
pursuit. And it is a ruining pursuit!"
She said, "I had not thought ever to be sorry for you--Why should I
grieve for you, gray traitor?"
Harshly he answered: "Oho, I am not proud of what I have made of my
life, and of your life, and of the life of that woman yonder, but do you
think I will be whining about it! No, Freydis: the boy that loved and
deserted you is here,"--he beat upon his breast,--"locked in, imprisoned
while time lasts, dying very lonelily.
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