I would see you sitting in your own chair
and all my dreams would find rich fulfilment in that royal moment.
Oh, Alice, we would have a beautiful life together! It's sweet to
make believe about it. You will sing to me in the twilight, and
we will gather early flowers together in the spring days. When I
come home from work, tired, you will put your arms about me and
lay your head on my shoulder. I will stroke it--so--that bonny,
glossy head of yours. Alice, my Alice--all mine in my dream--
never to be mine in real life--how I love you!"
The Alice behind him could bear no more. She gave a little
choking cry that betrayed her presence. Jasper Dale sprang up and
gazed upon her. He saw her standing there, amid the languorous
shadows of August, pale with feeling, wide-eyed, trembling.
For a moment shyness wrung him. Then every trace of it was
banished by a sudden, strange, fierce anger that swept over him.
He felt outraged and hurt to the death; he felt as if he had been
cheated out of something incalculably precious--as if sacrilege
had been done to his most holy sanctuary of emotion. White, tense
with his anger, he looked at her and spoke, his lips as pale as if
his fiery words scathed them.
"How dare you? You have spied on me--you have crept in and
listened! How dare you? Do you know what you have done, girl? You
have destroyed all that made life worth while to me.
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