“In other words?” was her question.

“In other words,” he answered in a tone of conviction, “friendship is only a substitute for love, and cannot exist beside it unless lover and friend be one and the same person.  Friendship purely intellectual is a fallacy, owing to the manifest imperfections of human nature.  It must, then, be an affair of the heart, whatever you may define that to be, and cannot, therefore, exist at the same time with any other affair of the heart without inevitable contradiction.  How often has love separated old friends, and friendship bred discord between lovers!”

“I never heard that argument before,” said Margaret, who, to tell the truth, was surprised at the result of the Doctor’s discourse.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

“I am not sure, but the point is interesting.  I think you are a little vague about what an ‘affair of the heart,’ as you call it, really is.”

“I suppose an affair of the heart to be such a situation of the feelings that the heart rules the head and the actions by the head.  The prime essence of love is that it should be complete, making no reservations and allowing of no check from the reason.”

“A dangerous state of things.”

“Yes,” said Claudius.  “When the heart gets the mastery it knows neither rest nor mercy.  If the heart is good the result will be good, if it is bad the result will be evil.  Real love has produced incalculably great results in the lives of individuals and in the life of the world.”

“I suppose so,” said Margaret; “but you made out friendship to be also an ‘affair of the heart,’ so far as you believe in it at all.  Is true friendship as uncalculating as true love?  Does it make no reservations, and does it admit of no check from the reason?”

“I think, as I said, that friendship is a substitute for love, second best in its nature and second best, too, in its unselfishness.”

“Many people say love is selfishness itself.”

“I know,” answered the Doctor, and paused as if thinking.

“Do you not want to smoke?” asked Margaret, with a tinge of irony, “it may help you to solve the difficulty.”

“Thank you, no,” said he, “the difficulty is solved, and it is no difficulty at all.  The people who say that do not know what they are talking about, for they have never been in love themselves.  Love, worth the name, is complete; and being complete, demands the whole, and is not satisfied with less than the whole any more than it is satisfied with giving less than all that it has.  The selfishness lies in demanding and insisting upon having everything, while only offering rags and shreds in return; and if one may find this fault in ordinary love affairs, one may find it tenfold in ordinary friendships.  Friendship may be heroic but love is godlike.”