Not realising that happiness is bowered in illusion.
"Let us live in dreamland awhile," Elaine had said with the wisdom of a little child.
It was tacitly agreed to by Rivière. When together, they combined to ignore the tangle of ugly circumstance and the harsh struggle to come. For the time being they were in fancy two lovers with no barrier between and the world smiling joyously upon them.
After a full day's work in his laboratory, he would come to her side and answer her questions with the tenderness of a lover.
"You've brought me white lilac again," she said one day as he entered. "How did you first guess that white lilac is my favourite flower?"
"White lilac is yourself," he answered.
"Why?"
"Every woman suggests a flower. One sees many roses—little bud roses, and big, buxom, full-blown roses, and wild, free-blowing roses. One sees many white camellias, and heavy-scented tuberoses, and opulent Parma violets, and gorgeous tiger-lilies—those have been the women of my world. One sees many marigolds and cornflowers and poppies. But I've seen only one white lilac—you. White lilac is the fresh young Spring. And yet it is a woman grown. White lilac is sweet and tender and gracious. White lilac is so faint in perfume that any other scented flower would smother it, and yet its fragrance lives in my memory beyond any other. White lilac is yourself."
"How many-sided you are! Financier, and scientist, and now ... and now poet."