"He didn't go away because he
hated me or was tired of me, he went away because he didn't want to
do me any harm, and I think he cared for me more just at that minute
than he'd ever done before. So I've nothing to spoil my memory of
him. I daresay we wouldn't have got on well, together, I don't think
I would ever have fascinated him enough to keep him with me for very
long--but now I know that he loved me at the very moment he went
away and wasn't thinking how ugly I was or what a nasty temper I had
or how irritating I could be."
"But, my dear child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How can you say
you loved one another if you were always quarrelling and expecting
to part?" "We weren't always quarrelling," said Maggie. "We weren't
together enough, but if we had been it wouldn't have meant that we
didn't love one another. I don't think we'd ever been very happy,
but being happy together doesn't seem to me the only sign of love.
Love seems to me to be moments of great joy rising from every kind
of trouble and bother. I don't call tranquillity happiness."
"Well, you have thought things out," said Miss Avies, "and all of us
considering you so stupid--"
"I'm not going to squash myself into a corner any more," said
Maggie.
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