“What is it, Judith? A favour?”
She drew from its envelope a letter that had come, that afternoon, from her attorney. His partner, Mr. Sanderson, was planning to build a home on Long Island, as a wedding gift to his only daughter. She knew the girl’s taste. She wanted to send the plans that Mrs. Marksley had rejected. With such entrée as the Sandersons could give him, Larimore Trench ought to find success in New York. He was wasting his talents in Springdale.
“It’s good of you, my dear. But that kind of success—or failure—doesn’t mean much to me.”
“Then what would satisfy you, Lary? You have so much ability.”
“A little of the right kind of recognition—perhaps. I used to think I would experience the thrill at the acceptance of a poem or essay by some discriminating editor. The first time such an acceptance came, it left me numb and cold with disappointment ... in myself, I mean—my inability to rise to the occasion.”
“May I tell you what you want—what you demand of life?” Some one had struck a match in her darkness.
“I—wish you would.”
“The thing you have attained, Lary, the height you have reached ... is under your feet. You—you are superior to it. The only thing that could satisfy you is—” she paused, a fervid instant—“the unattainable.”
Larimore Trench turned and looked into her eyes.
Dusk had settled on the garden, but Luna’s fire illuminated her face. His body stiffened, and a dull anguish smote him.