Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/91

 —for I don't feel like turning it up,—and then I stare a little, and then I write a little more.

Maggie, in her gray room, is sleeping stoutly. And beyond, in the sky-blue, sea-blue guest-room—I wonder if he is asleep, too? To be together in the same house, so near each other, is a strange and solemn thing.

Father said to-night: "You are as thoughtful of me as a son."

Father is very fond of him. And I—I love him so much that I begin to be afraid of him. I wish he were not quite so superb to look at. Sometimes I wish he were just a plain man, so that I could stand off and get an impression of him that would have a certain value. He dazzles me. We all have our own forms of paganism, and worship them in secret, being but half Christianized for their sakes. I think I have said before that my paganism is omnipotent beauty.

Thou glorious! Here alone in my rose-coloured room, nothing but this white paper being witness, my soul turns to thee as if thou wert a god upon a cloud. To thee I swerve. Something within me cries, "Worship!" I struggle to keep my feet.

Stay you the rather at mine. When you kneeled to me this evening, I battled with myself, that you should not know how I longed to