“It is well,” said she.
The cloud of light faded into a black sky. The child stirred, and the mother awoke, her heart aching, she knew not why.
Leonore, the woman, was tall, pale and exceptionally beautiful. She gazed out of clear, gray eyes that had lost the wonder of childhood without ever gaining the warmth of womanhood.
She passed through life as one in a dream. She saw much, she understood much, but when, in those intense moments that sometimes come, the quick tears of sympathy and love sprang to the eyes of those about her, her heart would seem a thing of stone. She knew that she should weep, but she could not. Then she would whisper to herself:
“Tears are not real. No one really feels. They just pretend.”
Donald, the young poet, loved her suddenly, burningly, gloriously. He looked into her cool gray eyes and swore to himself that in their depths slumbered the answer to all life.
He wooed her passionately, beseechingly, and in vain. He laid bare to her all that aching beauty that was his soul. She smiled vaguely, detached as a pine tree outlined against the evening sky....
They dragged him from the little pond behind the house. He lay among the flowers, still and beautiful, with the fire that had burned so painfully forever extinguished.
There were tears in the eyes of those who had gathered around him in the great, gray room, tears in the eyes of all save Leonore. Leonore looked at the waxen face and thought only that it was beautiful. She did not weep.