He was not balancing the two.  What man ever does, in fact?  It was simply because Margaret had a heart that he loved her, that she seemed necessary to him.  He was quite capable of making a match for his advancement, but he felt strong enough to make one for his own pleasure.  And if there are men so worldly as not to be attracted to unworldliness in a woman, Henderson was not one of them.  If his heart had not dictated, his brain would have told him the value of the sympathy of a good woman.

He was a very busy man, in the thick of the struggle for a great fortune.  It did not occur to him to reflect whether she would approve all the methods he resorted to, but all the women he knew liked success, and the thought of her invigorated him.  If she once loved him, she would approve what he did.

He saw much of her in those passing days—­days that went like a dream to one of them at least.  He was a welcome guest at the Arbusers’, but he saw little of Margaret alone.  It did not matter.  A chance look is a volume; a word is a library.  They saw each other; they heard each other.  And then passion grows almost as well in the absence as in the presence of the object.  Imagination then has free play.  A little separation sometimes will fan it into a flame.

The days went by, and Margaret’s visit was over.  I am obliged to say that the leave-taking was a gay one, as full of laughter as it was of hope.  Brandon was such a little way off.  Henderson often had business there.  The Misses Arbuser said, “Of course.”  And Margaret said he must not forget that she lived there.  Even when she bade her entertainers an affectionate good-by, she could not look very unhappy.

Spring was coming.  That day in the cars there were few signs of it on the roadside to be seen, but the buds were swelling.  And Margaret, neglecting the book which lay on her lap, and looking out the window, felt it in all her veins.

X

It is said that the world is created anew for every person who is in love.  There is therefore this constant miracle of a new heavens and a new earth.  It does not depend upon the seasons.  The subtle force which is in every human being, more or less active, has this power, as if love were somehow a principle pervading nature itself, and capable of transforming it.  Is this a divine gift?  Can it be used more than once?  Once spent, does the world to each succeeding experimenter in it become old and stale?  We say the world is old.  In one sense, the real sense to every person, it is no older than the lives lived in it at any given time.  If it is always passing away, it is always being renewed.  Every time a youth looks love in a maiden’s eyes, and sees the timid appealing return of the universal passion, the world for those two is just as certainly created as it was on the first morning, in all its color, odor, song, freshness, promise.  This is the central mystery of life.