But Larssen won't relent. Nor will my wife."

"Something may happen before then."

"We must make things happen."

"We?"

"Yes--you and I."

There was silence again for some moments. He came back to her side. She
sought for his hand, and he let her take it in hers.

Gradually the glow of an idea lit up her cheeks.

"I think I see the way out!" she exclaimed.

"What's the plan?"

"Will you trust to me--trust to me implicitly without asking for
reasons?"

"I'd trust you to the world's end!"

"Then write to your wife for me."

"To say----?"

"To say that I want to meet her."

"But she'd never come!"

"I know her better than you do. I saw her in the train that
morning--heard her speak. It told me a great deal. We women know one
another's springs of actions. If you write the letter I dictate, she'll
come!"

"If she came, it would only exhaust you and hinder your recovery. Dr
Hegelmann would certainly not allow it if he knew. He's given me strict
orders to chase away worry from you."

"It would worry me still more not to write that letter.... I shall be
fighting for you, and that will help me to get back my sight. Please!"

"Then I'll fetch pen and paper and write for you. But we must let a week
go by before posting. Every day will give you new strength."

"Through your love," she whispered.

CHAPTER XXV

WHITE LILAC

Happiness is a veil of iridescent gossamer draped over the ugliness of
reality. Happiness is rooted in illusion--in the ignoring of harsh fact
and jarring circumstance, and the perception only of what is beautiful
and joyous.

Happiness is an impressionist painting. One takes a muddy, sullen river
flanked by rotting wharves and grimy factories and huddled, festering
slums, and under the mantle of evening and the veil of illusion one
creates a "Nocturne in Silver." The eye of the artist finds equal beauty
in the Thames by sordid Southwark and the Adriatic lapping Venice in her
soft caress. The common phrase has it as "the seeing eye"--but more
justly it is the ignoring eye. The artist ignores the harsh and the
ugly, and transfers to his canvas only the harmonious and the poetic. He
epitomises happiness.

Little children know this truth instinctively. They find their highest
happiness in make-believe. A child of the slums with a rag-doll and a
few beads and a scrap of faded finery can make for herself a world of
fairyland. She is a princess clothed in shimmering silk and h