"I have never had enough of life," she avowed passionately. "I have always had the appearance of it, the promise that the next minute the cup would be given me. But the cup was never there. Or if it was, there was muddy water in it. The lights have never been bright enough, the music has never gone on long enough. Why!" She seemed frightened. "Is that like my father? Do I get that from him?" "It is because you are young," said Osmond. "And because you are beautiful and the world ought to be yours--to put your foot on it." The passion of his voice recalled her. "No," she answered humbly. "Not to put my foot on anything. No! no! no! Playmate," she added, "you are the dearest thing in all the world." The voice laughed out harshly. The man was lying prone at full length where she could not see him, his hands upon the earth he loved, his fostering, yet unheeding mother that had saved his life for her own service. At that moment, it seemed to him, his eye turned inward upon himself, as if there were foolish irony in that friendly comment. He looked to himself rather one of the earth forces, supremely strong, waiting for some power to guide it. "Elemental things are no good until they are harnessed and made to work," he heard himself saying, as in a trance; and then it was apparent she had not noticed, for she went on,-- "To be able to speak to any one as I speak to you! Playmate, it seems to me men might as well kill a child as kill women's innocent faith in love." "But men love, too," he heard himself answering her. "If I thought that! But when anything so beautiful turns into something base, and the creature we worshiped laughs and says it is always so, he kills something in us. And he can't bring it to life again. Neither he nor any other man can make it live. It is a dream, and the thought of it hurts us too much for us even to dream it over again.--What is that?" Out of his web of pain he could only answer,-- "What, playmate?" "Something sweet in the air." That recalled him to his dear garden and the homely sanities that awaited him. He sat up and brushed the wet hair from his forehead. "It is the lily field," he said. "A wind has risen. The flowers have been coming out to-day, and you get their scent." He laughed a little, tenderly, as at a child. "You said you never had enough of anything. You would have enough of them if you were there." "Why should I?" "The fragrance is so strong. You can make yourself drunk with it." "Come, playmate! Take me there. Let us walk through them in the dark and smell them." "No!" "Why not?" "It isn't good for you." He spoke seriously. "I know all about the preservatives of life, the medicines that keep us sane. I know we mustn't go and smell strong lilies at ten o'clock at night. We must go home and say our prayers and brush our hair and go to bed." "Do you say your prayers?" "Not exactly." "But almost?"