“No.”
“Pardon me, the world has not stiffened you with its multitudinous hypocrisies. We society fools are jointed up in false affectations. We cannot live like honest human beings.”
“You do not seem false to me,” she said.
“God forbid!” he answered, with a sudden stirring of his conscience.
They were both silent a season. The girl’s words had rent the sky above the man’s head. He was conscious of the perilous egotism that had taken the guise of a darkling vision to lead him onward into a shadow-land of desire.
“You should not dream too much,” he said.
His voice startled her; she looked him in the face, her instincts probing his meaning.
“Why do you say that?” she said.
“By reason of a certain melancholy wisdom.”
“And yet—”