Her
mouth was trembling in an ecstasy of grief and fear.
"Sweet," he muttered sentimentally, "sweet little girl. Don't you see
we'd just be putting off what's bound to happen? I'll be going to France
in a few months--"
She leaned away from him and clinching her fists lifted her face toward
the sky.
"I want to die," she said, as if moulding each word carefully in her
heart.
"Dot," he whispered uncomfortably, "you'll forget. Things are sweeter
when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it.
It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot. And when I got it it
turned to dust in my hands."
"All right."
Absorbed in himself, he continued:
"I've often thought that if I hadn't got what I wanted things might have
been different with me. I might have found something in my mind and
enjoyed putting it in circulation. I might have been content with the
work of it, and had some sweet vanity out of the success. I suppose that
at one time I could have had anything I wanted, within reason, but that
was the only thing I ever wanted with any fervor. God! And that taught
me you can't have _any_thing, you can't have anything at _all_.
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