"What are you trying to do to me, Ben Connor?"
"I'm trying to wake you up."
"I am awake. But what can I do?"
"You think you're awake, but you're not. Tell you what a girl needs, a stage—just like an actor. Think they can put on a play with these mountains for a setting? Never in the world. Make the actors look too small. Make everything they say sound too thin.
"Same way with a girl. She needs a setting. A room, a rug, a picture, a comfortable chair, and a dress that goes with it. Shuts out the rest of the world and gives her a chance to make a man focus on her—see her behind the footlights. See?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Do you know what I've been doing while I watched you just now?"
"Tell me."
He was fighting for a great purpose now, and a quality of earnest emotion crept into his voice. "Around your throat I've been running an edging of yellow old lace. Under your hand that was lying there I put a deep blue velvet; I had your shoulders as white as snow, with a flash to 'em like snow when you turned in the light; I had you proud as a queen, Ruth, with a blur of violets at your breast. I took out the tired look in your face. Instead, I put in happiness."
He stopped and drew a long breath.