Your books and your chair and your picture are there , dear -- only the picture is not half lovely enough . But the other rooms of the house must be made to bloom out freshly for you . What a delight it is thus to dream of what I would do for you ! Then I would bring you home , dear , and lead you through my garden and into my house as its mistress . I would see you standing beside me in the old mirror at the end of the hall -- a bride , in your pale blue dress , with a blush on your face . I would lead you through all the rooms made ready for your coming , and then to your own . I would see you sitting in your own chair and all my dreams would find rich fulfilment in that royal moment . Oh , Alice , we would have a beautiful life together ! It 's sweet to make believe about it . You will sing to me in the twilight , and we will gather early flowers together in the spring days . When I come home from work , tired , you will put your arms about me and lay your head on my shoulder . I will stroke it -- so -- that bonny , glossy head of yours . Alice , my Alice -- all mine in my dream -- never to be mine in real life -- how I love you ! '' The Alice behind him could bear no more . She gave a little choking cry that betrayed her presence . Jasper Dale sprang up and gazed upon her . He saw her standing there , amid the languorous shadows of August , pale with feeling , wide-eyed , trembling . For a moment shyness wrung him . Then every trace of it was banished by a sudden , strange , fierce anger that swept over him . He felt outraged and hurt to the death ; he felt as if he had been cheated out of something incalculably precious -- as if sacrilege had been done to his most holy sanctuary of emotion .
White , tense with his anger , he looked at her and spoke , his lips XXXXX pale as if his fiery words scathed them .
about amid as at behind beside from in through with