Could she accept this statement as comfort, or must she bow under it
as rebuke?
"Why," she asked at last huskily--the tears were no longer upon her
cheeks but queerly in her throat, impeding utterance, "do you tell me
these things?"
"To prevent you beholding lying visions, my dear, or dreaming lying
dreams of what might very well have been but--God be thanked--never has
been--never was.--Think a minute--remember--look."
And once more Damaris felt the breath of high romance and touched drama
of rare quality, with those same two figures as protagonists, and that
same Indian pleasure palace as their stage; but this time with a notable
difference of sentiment and of result.
For she visualized another going of Henrietta, a flight before the dawn.
Saw, through a thick scent-drenched atmosphere, between the expiring
lamp-light and broadening day, a deserted child beating its little hands,
in the extremity of its impotent anguish, upon the pillows of a
disordered unmade bed. Saw a man, too, worn and travel-stained from long
riding throughout the night, lost to all decent dignities of
self-control, savage with the animalism of frustrated passion, rage to
and fro amidst the litter of a smart woman's hurried packing, a trail of
pale blue ribbon plucking at and tripping him entangled in the rowels of
his spurs.
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