"Not if I could help it."
Sylvia knelt, taking the cold hands in hers.
"I hate him!" cried she fiercely. "I hate him for making you unhappy and spoiling your life!"
"Hush, child. Jason has not spoiled my life," contradicted Marcia with a grave, sad smile.
"But he has scarred it—dashed to pieces all the dreams you started out with—those beautiful dreams a girl has when she is young. I know what they are, for I dream them myself sometimes. They are lovely, delicate things. We never quite expect they will come true; yet for all that we believe in them. I know you had such fancies once, for you are the sort who would. And Jason came and trampled on them—"
"He made me see life as it was. Perhaps it was better I should."
"We all have to see life as it is sooner or later. But there are plenty of years ahead in which to do it. The man who destroys the world of illusion in which a girl lives destroys something no one can ever give back to her."
"I don't know that I should say that," returned Marcia with a faint, shadowy smile as if pursuing some secret, intriguing fancy.
"But it's never the same again, I mean—never the same."