"I am seeing all the things I have not got."
"Over there?"
She yielded his lack of imagination.
"Well, yes; over there. Don't you know it is always Faeryland—the place over there?"
"It is only Jersey—?"
She corrected him.
"The place out of reach. The place between which and ourselves flows a river, or rises a cliff. One can imagine anything to be there. See that grim, unreal castle, there in the shadows, its windows all gleaming with light from within. Well, it is a factory where they make soap-powder, but from here I can see Fair Rosamond leaning from its arched windows, if I choose, or armored and plumed knights riding into its gates."
"Oh!" Disappointment made the exclamation listless. "Story-making, you were? I am afraid I can't see that way, thank you; I haven't the head for it."
For the first time she smiled, with a warm lighting of her rain-gray eyes and a Madonna-like protectiveness of expression. He felt as distinct an impression as if she had laid her hand on his arm with an actual touch of sympathy.
"But I do not see that way, either," she explained. "That was an illustration. I mean that one can make pictures there of all the real things that are not real for one's self; at least, not yet real. It is a game to play, I suppose, while one waits."