“‘Sweet, goodnight!
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Goodnight, goodnight! as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast!’”
Her make-believe mood again. She was playing at being in love. She blew him a tantalizing kiss before the illusion had time to die, and disappeared into the house. Robert stood there for a moment. He realised that Margaret was only playing, that she had probably learned the words—yes, he even remembered where she had learned them—while taking the rôle of Juliet in her senior class play. Still the objective world was a series of illusions. What matter what Margaret was thinking or feeling within that pretty little head if she could always create such illusions. If she could always create them. He walked slowly back to his car. A cloud momentarily obscured the moon. The shadowy world of silver turned to black and then back to silver. If she could always do that.
In his room he found his official orders where he had stacked them on the chifferobe two days ago. He had forgotten to sort them. He yawned and began undressing leisurely. His hand brushed against the documents and he paused to stack them up again. Here was a copy of the telegram appointing him a second lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps, the order directing him to appear at Camp Eustis, the order assigning him to his company. And what was that scribbled across one of the envelopes? A poem.
“The agéd pilgrim hastens on the road
Nor stops to pluck the flowers by the way
Lest Death o’ertake him ere the close of day.”