"
"And I'm afraid to think what is coming to me," replied the girl, very
low.
"Ah, you!" retorted her hostess, dismissing that consideration with
contemptuous lightness. "You have plenty of compensations, plenty of
resources."
"Hasn't he?"
"Perhaps. Up to now. What will he do when he wakes up to an empty
world?"
"Write, won't he? And then the world won't be empty."
"He'll think it so. That is why I'm sorry for him."
"Won't you be sorry a little for me?" pleaded the girl. "Anyway, for the
part of me that I'm leaving here? Perhaps it's the very best of me."
Miss Van Arsdale shook her head. "Oh, no! A pleasantly vivid dream of
changed and restful things. That's all. Your waking will be only a
sentimental and perfumed regret--a sachet-powder sorrow."
"You're bitter."
"I don't want him hurt," protested the other. "Why did you come here?
What should a girl like you, feverish and sensation-loving and
artificial, see in a boy like Ban to charm you?"
"Ah, don't you understand? It's just because my world has been too
dressed up and painted and powdered that I feel the charm of--of--well,
of ease of existence. He's as easy as an animal. There's something about
him--you must have felt it--sort of impassioned sense of the gladness of
life; when he has those accesses he's like a young god, or a faun.
Pages:
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192