He looked at her with a strange smile; then suddenly his face grew grave and wistful—almost sad, as it seemed to her.
"You cannot guess, and I cannot tell you; but believe me that, as I stand here, there is an aching void in my heart, and I do long for something very earnestly."
The voice was like music, deep and thrilling; she listened and wondered.
"And you should be so happy," she said, almost unconsciously.
"Happy!" he echoed, and his dark eyes rested on hers with a strange expression that was half-mocking, half-sad. "Do you know what the poets say?"
"'Count no man happy till he dies,' do you mean?" said Stella.
"Yes," he said. "I do not think I know what happiness means. I have been pursuing it all my life; sometimes have been within reach of it but it has always evaded me—always slipped from my grasp. Sometimes I have resolved to let it go—to pursue it no longer; but fate has decreed that man shall always be seeking for the unattainable—that he who once looks upon happiness with the eyes of desire, who stretches out his hands toward her, shall pursue her to the end."
"And—but surely some get their desire."
"Some," he said, "to find that the prize is not worth the race they have run for it; to find that they have wearied of it when it is gained; to find that it is no prize at all, but a delusive blank; all dead sea fruit that turns to dust upon the lips."
"Not all; surely not all!" she murmured, strangely moved by his words.