It was outwardly a sort of
frank comradeship which took a vast deal for granted on both sides for
the mere sake of escaping analysis, a condition in which each understood
all that the other said, while neither quite knew what was in the
other's heart, a state in which both were pleased to dwell for a time,
as though preferring to prolong a sure if imperfect happiness rather
than risk one moment of it for the hope of winning a life-long joy. It
was a time during which mere friendship reached an artificially perfect
beauty, like a summer fruit grown under glass in winter, which in
thoroughly unnatural conditions attains a development almost impossible
even where unhelped nature is most kind. Both knew, perhaps, that it
could not last, but neither wished it checked, and neither liked to
think of the moment when it must either begin to wither by degrees, or
be suddenly absorbed into a greater and more dangerous growth.
At that time they were able to talk fluently upon the nature of the
human heart and the durability of great affections.
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