THE DAY-DREAMER
171
"I can wait; I can wait!" another voice was asking him whether it was worth waiting for, whether this belauded love was not all vanity and vexation, whether there could be anything divine in a sentiment which had brought him nothing but disappointment after disappointment, whether he was not playing the fool to his hopes and living in a delusion, and building his future on another make-believe. He sat down at his bare table in a room which held nothing of his, now, but his packed valise; and overcome by the desolation of the moment that stood empty between his past and his future, he struggled against the tears that choked him, clinging to his ideals, repeating blindly, "I can wait! I can wait!"
