"Oh, she has no bodily form. One does not say 'her hair shall be black' or 'her hair shall be red' any more than one makes an image of God. She dwells in the mysterious. Even when the time comes and she steps into reality, mystery will still cling to her. There must always be the wonder—the miracle." He spoke softly, as he always spoke when sentiment entrapped him. His native turn of thought found vent at these odd times and made him infinitely interesting. The slight satire that was ordinarily wont to twist his smile was smoothed away, and a certain sadness stole into its place; his green eyes lost their keenness of observation and looked into a space obscure to others. In these rare moments he was essentially of his race and of his country.
"No," he added, as if to himself, "a man does not say 'her hair shall be red' or 'her hair shall be black'!"
"It is very curious—very strange—a dream like that!" Max's voice was a mere whisper.
"Without his dreams, man would be an animal."
"And you, then, wait for this woman? In seriousness you wait, and believe that out of nothing she will come to you?"
Blake turned away and walked slowly to the window, the sadness, the aloofness still visible in his face like the glow from a shrouded light.
"That's the hardship of it, boy—the faith that it wants and the patience that it wants! Sometimes it takes the heart out of a man! There're days when I feel like a derelict; when I say to myself, 'Here I am, thirty-eight years old, unanchored, unharbored.' Oh, I know I'm young as the world counts age! I know that plenty of men and women like me, and that I pass the time of day to plenty as I go along! But all the same, if I died to-morrow there isn't one would break a heart over me. Not a solitary one."
"Do not say that!"
"It's true, all the same! Sometimes I say to myself, 'Wha a fool you are, Ned Blake! The Almighty gives reality to some and dreams to some, and who knows but your lot is to go down to your grave hugging empty hopes, like your forefathers before you!' It's terrible, sometimes, the way the heart goes out of a man!"
"Ned! Ned! Do not say that!" Max's voice was strangely troubled, strangely unlike itself, so unlike and troubled that it wakened Blake to self-consciousness.