A Man's Hearth
if he had not been struck by her rapt absorption in the sunset panorama before them. She had gone back to that place of thought from which his speech had called her; withdrawn from all around her as one who goes into a secret room and closes a door against the world. And she looked happy, or at least serenely at peace with her dreams. The man sighed with envious impatience, striving to follow her gaze and share the enchantment.

The enchantment was not for him. The brief storm had left tumbled masses of purple cloud hanging in the deep-rose tinted sky, in airy mockery and imitation of the purplish wall of the Palisades standing knee-deep in the rosy waters of the Hudson. Along the crest of the great rock walls lights blossomed like flowers through the violet mist, at the walls' base half-seen buildings flashed with lighted windows. He saw that it was all very pretty, but he had seen it so a hundred times without especial emotion.

His cigar was finished, yet the girl had not once moved. Abruptly, as before, he spoke to her, as he moved to leave.

"What are you looking at?" he demanded. "Oh, I'm not trying to be impertinent--I would like to know what you see worth while? You have not moved for half an hour. I wish you could show me something worth that."

Again she turned and considered him with grave attention. His tired young face bore the scrutiny; she answered him.

"I am seeing all the things I have not got."

"Over there?"

She yielded his lack of imagination.

"Well, yes; over there. Don't you know it is always Faeryland--the place over there?"

"It is only Jersey--?"

She corrected him.

"The place out of reach. The place between which and ourselves flows a river, or rises a cliff. One can imagine anything to be there. See that grim, unreal castle, there in the shadows, its windows all gleaming with light from within. Well, it is a factory where they make soap-powder, but from here I can see Fair Rosamond leaning from its arched windows, if I choose, or armored and plumed knights riding into its gates."


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