"And have God's eyes," said she. "Let me tell you. They were both handsome, brave, splendid, of course, but there was a difference: the one had a more perfect beauty of form and face, the other a nobler soul."
"And which will she favor?"
"Alas! I have not read, and do not know her enough to judge," was her answer; "but I shall hate her if she does not take him with the better soul."
"And why?" I could hear my heart beating.
"Love is not love unless it be—" She paused, thinking. "Dieu! from soul to soul," she added feelingly.
She was looking down, a white, tapered finger stirring the red petals of the rose. Then she spoke in a low, sweet tone that trembled with holy feeling and cut me like a sword of the spirit going to its very hilt in my soul.
"Love looks to what is noble," said she, "or it is vain—it is wicked; it fails; it dies in a day, like the rose. True love, that is forever."
"What if it be hopeless?" I whispered.
"Ah! then it is very bitter," said she, her
