"You see what, Rosie?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's—it's like having had a dream—a strange, awful dream—and waking from it."
"Waking from it?"
Rosie nodded. She made a further effort to explain. "After I—I did—what I did—that day at Duck Rock—everything was different. I can't describe it. It was like dying—and coming back. It was like—like waking."
"Do you mean that what happened before seemed—unreal?"
She nodded again. "Yes, that's it. It was like a play." But she corrected herself quickly. "No; it wasn't like a play. It was more than that. It was like a dream—an awful dream—but a dream you like—a dream you'd go through again. No; you wouldn't go through it again—it would kill you." She grew incoherent. "Oh, I don't know—I don't know. It's gone—just gone. I don't say it wasn't real. It was real. It was a kind of frenzy. It got hold of me. It got hold of me body and soul. I couldn't think of anything else—while it lasted."
Lois was pained. "Oh, but, Rosie, love can't come and go like that."
"Can't it? Then it wasn't love." But she contradicted herself again. "Yes, it was love. It was love—while it lasted."
While it lasted! While it lasted! The phrase seemed to be on every one's lips. There was distress in Lois's voice as she said, "But if it was love, Rosie, it ought to have lasted."
And Rosie seemed to agree with her. "Yes, it ought to have. But it didn't. It went away. No, it didn't go away; it just—it just—wasn't." She wrung her hands, struggling with the difficulty she found in explaining herself. "After that day at Duck Rock it was like—it was like the breaking of a spell that was on me. Everything was different. It was like seeing through plain daylight again after looking through colored glass. I didn't want the things I'd been wanting. They were foolish to me—I saw they were foolish—and—and impossible. But it wasn't as if they had died; it was as if I had—and come back."