"I don't mean anything disrespectful. I mean that we inherited from her the qualities that are 'flibbertigibbet' to the Whiteoaks—love of poetry, love of music, love of beauty. Don't you agree?"
"I think she must have been awfully different."
"Of course she was. So are we. . . . Acknowledge, now, you could say things to me that you couldn't say to any of the others without getting laughed at."
"Yes, I guess I could. Still"
"Well?"
"Renny's been awfully good to me about my music."
"Certainly. But why? Because he understands your feeling for it? No! Because he looks on you as a weakling, and is afraid you'd go dotty without it! He has an equal contempt for me as a poet. He only tolerates me because of the blood tie. He'd be loyal to Satan himself if he was his half-brother!"
"I wish I were like him," muttered Finch.
"No, you don't! You can't make me believe that you would exchange your love of music for love of horses and dogs."
"And women," added Finch.
"Ah, we all love women! But you must be like me—love and forget. Uncle Nick was like that as a young man, too. He told me once that he's forgotten the names of the women he once cared for—excepting, of course, the one he unhappily married."
Finch said: "Eden, do you mind telling me something? Don't you care for Alayne any longer?"
"I don't love her as a woman, if that's what you mean. Perhaps I should have forgotten her name, too, if we hadn't married."
"Strange—when she is so—lovely, and so good."
"She loved my poetry first. Then me, as the author of it. And I suspect that I loved her for loving my poetry. It's all over."
"But she loves your poetry still, doesn't she?"
"I believe she does. But she loves it as disembodied art. It's Renny she loves now."
Finch turned away and crossed to the other side of the
