"I want to die," she said, as if moulding each word carefully in her heart. "Dot," he whispered uncomfortably, "you'll forget. Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know-because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot. And when I got it it turned to dust in my hands." "All right." Absorbed in himself, he continued: "I've often thought that if I hadn't got what I wanted things might have been different with me. I might have found something in my mind and enjoyed putting it in circulation. I might have been content with the work of it, and had some sweet vanity out of the success. I suppose that at one time I could have had anything I wanted, within reason, but that was the only thing I ever wanted with any fervor. God! And that taught me you can't have anything, you can't have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It's like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it-but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you've got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone-" He broke off uneasily. She had risen and was standing, dry-eyed, picking little leaves from a dark vine.