“It is more than a dream. I am building upon it as though it were a veritable rock.”
“A dream—to build the real upon? The architects of fate don’t like that plan, do they?”
“They have to like it,—for happy people are doing it every day, and a good many people escape calamity.”
“It hadn’t struck me so; there seem to be a good many unhappy people in the world.”
She spoke a little forlornly, and then, before he could take advantage of her tone, “But I suppose it’s unprofitable to discuss such things. And as your friend Mr. Balcomb says, ‘I have no kick coming.’ Slang is very expressive, isn’t it?”
“But we must hold to our dreams,” he said soberly.
“I suppose we must, even though they are things of air that only lead us astray. I didn’t think you were sentimental. I’m afraid I can’t sympathize exactly, for sentiment was left out of me utterly;” and she hated herself for the bravado with which she spoke.
“I can’t believe that! Every one has it. I’m a thoroughly practical person, and yet I have my dreams,—my dream!”
Olive and Pollock were singing again. They were far in advance and their voices stole softly upon the night.
Zelda stopped to listen. Her heart was in a tumult of happiness and wonder. The splendor of the moonlight upon the fields about them, the gloomy shadow of the woodland beyond, the man beside her hesitating, yet ready to tell her of his love. There stole across her spirit the tremulous awe of a girl to whom love has come for the first time as it can never come again.