"My blessed child!" he cried, in great distress and perturbation, "What

have I done? I--I----"

"Call me 'small' all you like!" she answered. "I don't care. It isn't

that. You mustn't think me such an imbecile." She dropped her hands from

her face and shook the tears from her eyes with a mournful laugh. He saw

that her hands were clenched tightly and her lip trembled. "I will not

cry!" she said in a low voice.

"Somebody ought to murder me; I ought to have thought--personalities are

hideous----"

"Don't! It wasn't that."

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"I ought to be shot----"

"Ah, please don't say that," she said, shuddering; "please don't, not even

as a joke--after last night."

"But I ought to be for hurting you, indeed----"

She laughed sadly, again. "It wasn't that. I don't care what you call me.

I am small. You'll try to forgive me for being such a baby? I didn't mean

anything I said. I haven't acted so badly since I was a child."

"It's my fault, all of it. I've tired you out. And I let you get into

that crush at the circus--" he was going on, remorsefully.

"That!" she interrupted. "I don't think I would have missed the circus."

He had a thrilling hope that she meant the tent-pole; she looked as if she

meant that, but he dared not let himself believe it.

"No," he continued; "I have been so madly happy in being with you that

I've fairly worn out your patience. I've haunted you all day, and

I have----"

"All that has nothing to do with it," she said, slowly. "Just after you

left, this afternoon, I found that I could not stay here. My people are

going abroad, to Dresden, at once, and I must go with them. That's what

almost made me cry. I leave to-morrow morning."

He felt something strike at his heart. In the sudden sense of dearth he

had no astonishment that she should betray such agitation over her

departure from a place she had known so little, and friends who certainly

were not part of her life. He rose to his feet, and, resting his arm

against a sycamore, stood staring away from her at nothing.

She did not move. There was a long silence.

He had wakened suddenly; the skies had been sapphire, the sward emerald,

Plattville a Camelot of romance; to be there, enchantment--and now, like a

meteor burned out in a breath, the necromancy fell away and he gazed into

desolate years. The thought of the Square, his dusty office, the bleak

length of Main Street, as they should appear to-morrow, gave him a faint

physical sickness. To-day it had all been touched to beauty; he had felt

fit to live and work there a thousand years--a fool's dream, and the

waking was to emptiness. He should die now of hunger and thirst in that

Sahara; he hoped the Fates would let it be soon--but he knew they would

not; knew that this was hysteria, that in his endurance he should plod on,

plod, plod dustily on, through dingy, lonely years.




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