Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/192

 and written, I could tell her of France in dazzling colours, and in dazzling deeds. In the midst of my story she broke in:

"Have you ever seen—" She stopped abruptly. "Go on, go on, dear. Forgive me for interrupting."

"Have I ever seen what?" I insisted.

A forbidding look made me continue my story.

She became a regular part of my life. I even was obedient at home, for fear that as a punishment I might be kept from her. As soon as luncheon was over, I would lie down for my hour of rest, then dress quickly and go to the place where I had first fallen into her garden. There we now had two ropes fastened, for me to slide down. Sometimes she would even be there, ready to catch me before I touched the ground.

We were fast friends, yet our friendship partook of the unreal, since she never gave me anything except her impersonal thoughts. Of her past life she never spoke, and her heart was as withheld from me as the waters of the fountain to which I had compared her.

Again one day she began: "Have you ever seen—" and again broke off, and insisted that she had meant to say nothing, and apologized for not knowing what she wanted to say.

I pondered a good deal over the unfinished phrase, and finally thought I had found the end of it. So one afternoon when she began for the