But tears flow as easily beneath closed lids as
when the eyes are wide open, and to the hardest heart come moments of
reverie, of sudden waking from sleep, or involuntary lapsing into day
dream, when, like a sword in the heart, comes the thought of one too
dearly loved. Do his best he could not escape these moments of
exquisite torture. The poem he was reading fell fantastically into the
tune of the last waltz down which he and Rose had drifted together.
The prose--and very prosy--work he impatiently seized in the hope of
banishing that witching melody from his brain, simply followed the
perverted feet of the poem. Down the dull page danced the meaningless
syllables, keeping time to the delicious strain in a way that was
simply appalling to a mind whose intellectual processes were, as a
rule, thoroughly well regulated. If he walked the street there was
small chance but that some half-turned head or fluttering robe among
the women he met would remind him of the sweetest head and prettiest
drapery in the world.
Always along the misty aisles of his consciousness sped this little
lovely vision, now hasting, now delaying, now bending with melting
tenderness toward him, now mockingly eluding his grasp, never out of
sight, never within reach.
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