And as I said the words I thrilled; my blood seemed to surge into my eyes and blind me. Something had me by the throat. It was a strange moment. In that moment I had a glimpse of the truth—a white light illumined my seeking, groping senses. Then it was gone. I was in darkness again. But in that brief lightning space I had stood on the brink of a revelation. In the weeks and months past, through the blinding—the fervid—gleam of my feeling for Haidee I had seen Wanza but obscurely—Wanza—tried day after day by homeliest duties, and not found wanting; I had seen that she had her own bookless lore as she had her own indisputable charm; I had known that at times she swayed me; but I had never come so near to knowing my heart as in that evanescent, stabbing, revealing, moment.
As I sat there I felt a sudden sense of rest, almost of emancipation. I was weary of cob-webbed dreams, sick of straining after the unattainable. My thoughts reverted to life as it had been in the old days before the coming of the wonder woman, to the days when Joey and Wanza and I had managed to go through the tedium of our hours placidly enough. I longed to take up the old, sane routine. I was impatient with suffering that chafed and gnawed the heart-strings.
I said to myself that all that was left of my former feeling for Haidee was admiration, reverence for her goodness, and a wonder—she was a dream woman—she would remain a dream woman always—an elusive, charming personality, something too fine for the common round of daylight duties. I thought of the poet’s lines:
“I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candle light.”
Had I thought of Haidee so?
When I turned back to the cedar room, Mrs. Olds met me at the door with a whispered, “Joey is lucid—he is asking for you.” I crossed swiftly to the bed, knelt down and took my lad’s hand. He smiled at me in his old way, but his eyes went past me to Mrs. Olds. His voice was distinct as he ordered, “Go, get Wanza, Mrs. Olds, please.”
I heard Wanza’s step at that moment. She came softly forward and crouched beside me. “I am here, Joey,” she said in her rich young voice.
“That’s all right then! Wanza; if I don’t get well you got to marry Mr. David.”
The troubled face bending down over the gray one on the pillow, flamed. “Joey—dear!”
“Yes, Wanza,” pleadingly, “cause who’ll take care of him?”