“You would not have us grow old in pretty nothingness, thou dearest of all born things,” he said impatiently—“like the Man of Pallid Ideals and his little faded poetess, dreaming themselves away in a fragile world of dreams! My Betty, it cannot be.”
She shook her head provokingly.
He pshawed:
“We do not live by denials alone, you sweet dreamer,” said he, feeding his eyes upon her eyes—“we are here to live our life—not to shirk the living.... Our feet are planted on the dear brown earth, and only so may we raise our heads amongst the stars.... They prate of other worlds who themselves after all only judge of other worlds by the glorious life that their dullard eyes so scorn in this.... They hold out heavens to us! but what trumpet blast of all the sepulchral souls in heaven shall stir a man like the touch of your dear lips?”
“Sweetheart,” said she—“I did not say I did not love your lips.”
He laughed quietly, kissing her gloved fingers:
“Are not your very hands exquisitely fashioned but to steal away a man’s heart, my Betty? Why does your white self hold me enthralled unless it be that I may love you—not the vague image of you?”
Betty laughed happily:
“Well, Noll,” said she—“if you forget me as wholly as you have done these two years, I can almost bear it!”
“You were becoming obliterated, sweetheart,” said he hoarsely—“yet you were not leaving me free. Other women’s skirts were rustling in my ears, but your fragrance came between. Now these others are all silent—I hear only you. You must set me no dullard task of loving a vague image of you. I love you, dear heart—and I must love you. I want nothing more. I will have nothing less.”