THE SONG OF THE LARK
can make money, if you care about that more than anything else." He nodded prophetically above his interlacing fingers.
"But I don't. That 's only one thing. Anyhow, I could n't if I did." She pulled her dress lower at the neck as if she were suffocating. "I only want impossible things," she said roughly. "The others don't interest me."
Dr. Archie watched her contemplatively, as if she were a beaker full of chemicals working. A few years ago, when she used to sit there, the light from under his green lamp shade used to fall full upon her broad face and yellow pigtails. Now her face was in the shadow and the line of light fell below her bare throat, directly across her bosom. The shrunken white organdie rose and fell as if she were struggling to be free and to break out of it altogether. He felt that her heart must be laboring heavily in there, but he was afraid to touch her; he was, indeed. He had never seen her like this before. Her hair, piled high on her head, gave her a commanding look, and her eyes, that used to be so inquisitive, were stormy.
"Thea," he said slowly, "I won't say that you can have everything you want—that means having nothing, in reality. But if you decide what it is you want most, you can get it." His eye caught hers for a moment. "Not everybody can, but you can. Only, if you want a big thing, you 've got to have nerve enough to cut out all that 's easy, everything that 's to be had cheap." Dr. Archie paused. He picked up a paper-cutter and, feeling the edge of it softly with his fingers, he added slowly, as if to himself:—
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win ... or lose it all."
Thea's lips parted; she looked at him from under a frown, searching his face. "Do you mean to break loose, too, and—do something?" she asked in a low voice.
243
