Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/100

84 in his chair, and now in his voice there was a strange, wonderful sincerity. Dan," he said, "I've got to work, because I've got to forget."

"What do you mean?"

"Just the same old trite sentence which ten thousand men have uttered before me. I loved a girl with all my heart and soul. The thought of her was the sweetest essence of my life. She invaded my dreams; and waking, she was ever near me. In my office sometimes as I sat dictating a letter her face seemed to laugh up into my own from the printed page before me. Sometimes I drew pictures in the smoke of my cigar, wonderful, dream-world pictures of a little home that might have been, way off somewhere in the mountains among the glorious pines and flowers. And I used to see her waiting for me by the old rustic turnstile in a garden at eventide, laughing merrily, wonderfully happy at my return. And then I would take her into my arms. But I never kissed her. Somehow it didn't seem just right."

He paused for a moment and gazed wistfully into the smoke of his cigar. "Oh, Dan," he continued presently, "can mere words describe a dream like that? To me she was an angel, a dream, a goddess. At last I had something to work for in my life … Finally a day came when business matters drew me to Alaska. I was gone three months. During all that time I received but three letters from her. That was like Marion. She always forgot a man as soon as he had gone from her sight. And then the day