50
"Are we in love?" Victor asked one evening in the parlor.
"Beg pardon?" Victoria said, glancing up from where she was reclining on the sofa with Anne's copy of Black Beauty.
"Are we in love, or merely infatuated?" he asked.
The fretfulness in his voice made her close her book, sit up a bit straighter, and look at him properly. He sat in his armchair by the fireplace with a magazine open on his lap. The firelight danced across his drawn brow and slight frown.
"After twelve years? In love, surely," Victoria replied in her most comforting tone. Victor met her eye briefly, then looked back at his magazine, eyebrows knotted. Victoria was just about to crack open her book again when he spoke.
"But how are we to know?" he asked. "That it's love? I mean, I still delight to merely be near you, your smile warms my soul, I believe you are perfect, I can spend hours happily speaking to you of trivialities, all I desire is your company-"
"Are you quoting?" Victoria interrupted gently. "Or are these your feelings?"
"Both," he replied briskly, not raising his eyes. "Is that enough to sustain us? Have we considered the practicalities of life and partnership?"
"Victor, we live the practicalities of life and partnership-"
"What of our habits, dispositions, and principles?" he asked as though she hadn't spoken.
"What of them?" she asked in return.
Victor looked her in the eye and did not answer. Victoria arranged her face carefully and bit the inside of her mouth so that she did not laugh, not even a little. Poor Victor looked so truly vexed that to laugh would surely hurt his feelings. Though she was sorely amused all the same.
"It is a good thing, surely, that we still feel infatuated after so long?" she asked him. "All of those things you quoted, I feel just the same toward you. I think it is lovely." He made a little noise in his throat and she wasn't certain if it was positive or negative.
"We know each other's habits intimately," Victoria said, deciding to use sense along with sensibility. "Our dispositions are quite similar, as are our principles. We have discovered this through many years of experience and conversation. And when we do disagree we have always done so with kindness and respect."
She paused. His expression was still clouded, but his forehead was relaxing. With affection and fondness she gazed at him. For a moment she was quiet, just to organize her thoughts before she spoke.
"I believe at first we were merely infatuated," she said with deliberation, so that he knew she was serious, not mocking him. "Attraction, a sense of affinity. After all, we did not know each other, did we? Yet at the moment we met I knew that we would be good for each other. I also believe that true love has grown. I had always dreamed of a deep and abiding love. I believe we have it. We enjoy one another, we are committed to each other…"
Victoria trailed off. Her words were so insufficient to her feelings! Though she could see that Victor's face was brightening, that tiny hopeful smile curling up the edges of his mouth, his eyes so warm and sweet on hers. It gave her such happiness to see him pleased, to make him feel better.
"Every day you have kept your vows," she told him, an answering smile on her own lips. "And if that is not love then I am not certain what is. You lift me up out of my sorrows. You guide me through and out of the dark times. Being with you fulfills me. Fills my cup to overflowing."
Much to her surprise she found her throat had tightened and she could no longer speak. Delicately she coughed and took a moment to compose herself.
"I feel the same," Victor said. "You do the same for me." His voice was soft, and so was his expression when she at last met his gaze. He gave a small and self-deprecating little chuckle.
"Ah, I'm being silly," he said, sounding more like himself. "For all the reasons you said. Of course it's love. I can't think of anything nicer than this. If we are happy and pleased with each other, then...Well."
There was a pleasant, companionable silence. All appeared right once more. As Victoria opened her book again, she murmured, "You shouldn't read the advice column in The Girls Own Paper, it always upsets you."
"Yes, yes, I know," he said with a sigh as he closed the magazine and set it aside.
On his way to the piano he stopped to lean over the sofa and give her a sweet peck on the cheek. She turned her head so that it turned into a long and lingering kiss on the lips.