"You mustn't think me childish, but I've always had a secret gateway to a place—my Secret world—where everything is make-believe, and nothing can be but truth and beauty. Often when Echochee was tiresome, or I was tired, I used to slip away and go there."
"I wish you'd take me—won't you?"
"Oh, I can't," she quickly answered, stooping for a flower in our path, holding it in both hands and leaning her face above it.
"Yes," at last I said, "I've a place like that; but I don't know whether I live there in make-believe, or throwing off the make-believe we have to wear in the world you're going to, I live honestly with myself. If you won't take me to yours, sometime maybe you'll come to mine!"
Now, I had no intention of making love to her. We were talking only about secret worlds and day-dreams.
"I'm afraid it might be difficult," she answered, dropping the flower and walking a shade more slowly. "Our lives—yours and mine—are cast along such opposite lines, it seems!"
"That's what Secret worlds are for," I told her, "——that, no matter how far apart we are, our spirits may come and meet; live again, as we've lived here; be happy again—as I've been." I turned, saying with a laugh that was meant to convey an impression of insouciance—yet failing rather miserably: "These two big pines here, Princess, actually make the gateway to my pool—which is, in fact, my Secret world, because you helped me build my home there. So, you see, it wouldn't be very difficult, as you were about to enter without knowing it. Oh, I wish I could tell you more about it!" And I then became silent, too helplessly afraid to go on.
A brighter color had come into her throat and cheeks, but she was smiling whimsically as she said:
"Then we must go around—find another path to the fort—mustn't we!"
She had stopped before me, poised delicately, almost swaying; and for several seconds our eyes, that must have been charged with some untranslatable excitement, held fast. Mine would not let go, and hers I believe could not. Her hands, idly at her sides, were turned palms forward, unconsciously suggestive of supplication.