"When my money was exhausted."
"I never dreamt!"
"What else was left for me?"
"Surely you knew that I"d provide for you?"
"I couldn"t accept it--then."
"You"ll accept it now?"
"I must think."
"I insist! I claim it as my right! You wouldn"t torture me all my life with the thought that I"d driven you to----"
"Don"t say it."
Riviere took her hand and bent to kiss it reverently. There was silence for many moments--a silence of deep sympathy. Elaine"s flushed cheeks told Riviere more plainly than words what she was feeling.
"I"m so glad," she said at length. "So glad to know."
"And I"m glad to have told you."
"I shall get my sight back now. I have something to live for."
"Please G.o.d, you will."
"I feel it. I have something to live for.... Dear John!"
She sought to take his hand in hers, but he rose abruptly from beside her couch and strode away.
"We"re forgetting!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I"m still Clifford Matheson."
"Not to me."
"Nothing can alter the fact."
"Let us live in dreamland awhile," she pleaded gently.
"But the awakening must come."
"We have till May 3rd."
"Till May 3rd.... And then?"
"And then you will go back to the fight."
"Yes. But Larssen won"t relent. Nor will my wife."
"Something may happen before then."
"We must make things happen."
"We?"
"Yes--you and I."
There was silence again for some moments. He came back to her side. She sought for his hand, and he let her take it in hers.
Gradually the glow of an idea lit up her cheeks.
"I think I see the way out!" she exclaimed.
"What"s the plan?"
"Will you trust to me--trust to me implicitly without asking for reasons?"
"I"d trust you to the world"s end!"
"Then write to your wife for me."
"To say----?"
"To say that I want to meet her."
"But she"d never come!"
"I know her better than you do. I saw her in the train that morning--heard her speak. It told me a great deal. We women know one another"s springs of actions. If you write the letter I dictate, she"ll come!"
"If she came, it would only exhaust you and hinder your recovery. Dr Hegelmann would certainly not allow it if he knew. He"s given me strict orders to chase away worry from you."
"It would worry me still more not to write that letter.... I shall be fighting for you, and that will help me to get back my sight. Please!"
"Then I"ll fetch pen and paper and write for you. But we must let a week go by before posting. Every day will give you new strength."
"Through your love," she whispered.
CHAPTER XXV
WHITE LILAC
Happiness is a veil of iridescent gossamer draped over the ugliness of reality. Happiness is rooted in illusion--in the ignoring of harsh fact and jarring circ.u.mstance, and the perception only of what is beautiful and joyous.
Happiness is an impressionist painting. One takes a muddy, sullen river flanked by rotting wharves and grimy factories and huddled, festering slums, and under the mantle of evening and the veil of illusion one creates a "Nocturne in Silver." The eye of the artist finds equal beauty in the Thames by sordid Southwark and the Adriatic lapping Venice in her soft caress. The common phrase has it as "the seeing eye"--but more justly it is the ignoring eye. The artist ignores the harsh and the ugly, and transfers to his canvas only the harmonious and the poetic. He epitomises happiness.