"
"Yes," Artois said, gravely. "In some things she is very much his
daughter."
"In some things only?" asked Hermione.
"Don't you think so? Don't you think she has much of you in her also?
I do."
"Has she? I don't know that I see it. I don't know that I want to see
it. I always look for him in Vere. You see, I dreamed of having a boy.
Vere is instead of the boy I dreamed of, the boy--who never came, who
will never come."
"My friend," said Artois, very seriously and gently, "are you still
allowing your mind to dwell upon that old imagination? And with Vere
before you, can you regard her merely as a substitute, an understudy?"
An energy that was not free from passion suddenly flamed up in
Hermione.
"I love Vere," she said. "She is very close to me. She knows it. She
does not doubt me or my love."
"But," he quietly persisted, "you still allow your mind to rove
ungoverned among those dangerous ways of the past?"
"Emile," she said, still speaking with vehemence, "it may be very easy
to a strong man like you to direct his thoughts, to keep them out of
one path and guide them along another.
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