Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/105

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Ice-Plains
93

by keeping private certain emotions and states of mind which might prejudice one party in the eyes of the other."

How the remembrance of Janusz comes back to me as I listen! Of all this, he knew nothing at all.

"I doubt whether so much trouble is very profitable," I return. "The game is hardly worth the candle."

"And yet some there are," he goes on to say, "for whom present bliss has no value, if they know beforehand that the morrow will take it away. And they often prefer to renounce it entirely."

The words are spoken calmly, without any apparent significance; yet there is in their tone, I fancy, an under-current of ominous import.

"Well," I say, repressing my irrational dread, "then let all such take care to marry with judgment."

"Nevertheless, to give love and get in its place only intellectuality is not a good bargain, I fear."

Now—now I understand—and I almost feel hatred for the man. Yes, I may throw