real terror at the hideous prospect! Surely Fate could not be so cruel
as to implant such a desperate desire in a soul that never was to know
its fulfilment. Could it, Alice? Tell me, _could_ it?"

The Boy held his breath now.

Who was this girl, anyhow, who seemed to express his own thoughts as
accurately as he himself could have done? He was bored no longer. He was
roused, stirred, awakened--and intensely interested. It was as though
the voice of his own soul spoke to him in a dream.

The cold, lifeless voice now chimed in again. In his impatience the Boy
clenched his fists and shut his teeth together hard. Why didn't she keep
still? He didn't want to miss a single note he might have caught of the
voice--that other! Why did this nonentity--for one didn't have to see
her to be sure that she was that--have to interrupt and rob him of his
pleasure?

"I don't understand you, Opal," she was saying. (Of course she didn't,
thought the Boy--how could she?) "I am sure that I live. And yet I have
never felt that way--thank goodness! It's vulgar to feel too deeply,
Mamma used to say, and as I have grown older, I can see that she was
right. The best people never show any excess of emotion. That is for
tragedy queens, operatic stars, and--the women we do not talk about!
Ladies cultivate repose!"

("Repose!--_mon Dieu!_" thought Paul, behind the hedge. He wished that
she would!)

"And yet, Alice, you are--married!"