It has come into your hands and you do not want it. You
hardly know it is yours; and if you fully knew it you would not know what
to do!
You are innocent, indeed; you have done nothing, spoken no word, given no
look that, in your opinion, your cold indifferent opinion, could attract a
woman's love. But the harm is done, nevertheless, and a great harm too.
When you are old and sensible you will look back to this day as one of
sorrow and evil, and you will know then that all greatness and power and
glory of realized ambition are nothing unless a man have a woman's love.
You will know that a man who cannot love is blind to half the world he
seeks to conquer, and that a man who cannot love truly is no true man, for
he who is not true to one cannot be true to many. That is the sum and
reckoning of what love is worth.
But John knew of nothing beyond friendship, and he could not conceive how
friendship could turn into anything else. When he saw the tear on
Josephine Thorn's cheek he was greatly disturbed, and vaguely wondered
what in the world he should do.
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