“Sentiment.”
“I believe that is so,” he said suddenly, yet he continued to look at her, mystified.
“I mean it this way,” she said pensively. “You don’t see me at all as I am. You see me as you wish to see me. It is very beautiful, but it is not always me, and so sometimes I feel that it’s not me you love and, and I wonder——”
“You’d rather I didn’t idealize you?” he said, greatly astonished.
She smiled with a smile that changed the sadness prophetic in her eyes to a glow of happiness.
“No; I want you to feel as you do just now,” she said shyly, “even——”
“Well, even what?”
“Even if you wake up after,” she said solemnly.
“Inga!” he cried, in a furious protest. But she avoided the arms which sought to sweep her down to him.
“That’s what I mean by sentiment,” she said hastily. “Do you understand?”