"
"We had got so far in our talk as to decide," Miss Wainwright went on,
too much absorbed in recalling the interview she was relating to notice
the painter's words, "he decided, that is, not I--that the only thing
to do is to enjoy the present and to let the future go; but I object
that one cannot help dreading what might come."
She spoke, of course, solely with reference to her own inner
experiences, but Fenton, with the egotism which is universal to
humanity, received the words in their application to his own case. If
he could but determine what would come, he might decide how to act in
this hard present. Yet, whatever that future might be, he must at any
cost extricate himself from this coil which pressed so cruelly upon
him.
"Even so he would be right," he answered her words. "Happiness in this
world consists, at best, in a choice of evils, and at least one may
make of the present a sauce _piquante_ to cover the flavor of the dread
of the future."
"You take a more desperate view of the matter than my friend," Miss
Wainwright said, sighing bitterly. "His only fear is that I shall lose
everything by not making sure of whatever present happiness is
possible."
Fenton glanced at her curiously, aware no less from her tone and manner
than from her words that the conversation was touching her as well as
himself through some keen personal experience.
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