CHAPTER VI—BESIDE BEAUTIFUL WATERS
WHEN Gaston tried to sleep, he found it impossible. His brain was on fire, every nerve quivering with some new mysterious power and his imagination soaring on tireless wings. He rolled and tossed an hour, then got up, and sat by his open window looking out over the city sleeping in the still white moonlight. He looked into the mirror and grinned.
“What is the matter with me!” he exclaimed. “I believe I’m going crazy.”
He sat down and tried to work the thing out by the formulas of cold reason. “It’s perfectly absurd to say I’m in love. My wild romancing about a passion that will grasp all life in its torrent sweep is only a boy’s day dream. The world is too prosy for that now.”
Yet in spite of this argument the room seemed as bright as day, and the moon was only a pale sister light to the radiance from the face of the girl he had seen that day. Her face seemed to him smiling close into his now. The light of her eyes was tender and soothing like the far away memory of his mother’s voice.
“It’s a passing fancy,” he said at last, after he had sat an hour dreaming and dreaming of scenes he dared not frame in words even alone. He stood by the window again.
“What a beautiful old world this is after all!” he thought as he gazed out on the tops of the oaks whose young leaves were softly sighing at the touch of the night winds. Turning his eye downward to the street he saw the men loading the morning papers into the wagons for the early mail.
“I wonder what sort of report of my speech they put in?” he exclaimed. Unable to sleep he hastily dressed, went down and bought a paper.
On the front page was a flattering portrait, two columns in width, with a report of his speech filling the entire page, and an editorial review of a column and a half. He was hailed as the coming man of the state in this editorial, which contained the most extravagant praise. He knew it was the best thing he had ever done, and he felt for the minute proud of himself and his achievement. This contemplation of his own greatness quieted his nerves and he fell asleep. He was awakened by the first rolling of carts on the pavements at dawn. He knew he had not slept more than two hours but he was as wide awake as though he had slept soundly all night.
“I must be threatened with that spell of fever Auntie has been worrying about since I was a boy!” he laughed as he slowly dressed.