exclaimed, in conclusion. "You see the mischief you have worked! You
will go, now, thank heaven--and go cured."

"I will go,--for a time," he said. "This mood of hers must wear
itself out. But, if I loved her before, I worship her now. She is
magnificent!--a woman with the passions of hell and the sweetness of
an angel. She is the woman I have waited for all my life,--the only
woman I have ever known. Some day I will take her in my arms and tell
her that I understand her."

"Diego," I said, divided between despair and curiosity, "you have
fancied many women: wherein does your feeling for Chonita differ? How
can you be sure that this is love? What is your idea of love?"

He sat down and was silent for a moment, then spoke thoughtfully:
"Love is not passion, for one may feel that for many women; not
affection, for friendship demands that. Not even sympathy and
comradeship; one can find either with men. Nor all, for I have felt
all, yet something was lacking. Love is the mysterious turning of one
heart to another with the promise of a magnetic harmony, a strange
original delight, a deep satisfaction, a surety of permanence, which
did either heart roam the world it never would find again. It is the
knowledge that did the living body turn to corruption, the spirit
within would still hold and sway the steel which had rushed unerringly
to its magnet. It is the knowledge that weakness will only arouse
tenderness, never disgust, as when the fancy reigns and the heart
sleeps; that faults will clothe themselves in the individuality of the
owner and become treasures to the loving mind that sees, but worships.
It is the development of the highest form of selfishness, the
passionate and abiding desire to sacrifice one's self to the happiness