. . . And my seeking for the princess, for the fairy, for the little white, fragile girl became so intense that I sometimes thought I had found her, found her in my imagination; and then I would speak to her, as in a dream . . . Until . . . until I woke from my waking dream and remembered that I had been wandering away from home for hours, that my mother would be anxious, that I was not fit to be seen, that I looked like a dirty street-boy, that I had only been dreaming, that there were no white or red flowers around me . . . and then I would cry, boy of thirteen though I was, passionately, as if I should go mad . . . And I have never told all this to any one, but I am telling it to you, because I want to ask you: Addie is not like that, is he? When you come to think of it, how children differ, at that age!"
She sat on her chair, very pale, and could not speak.
"My parents did not know that I was like that; and I told nobody about my fancies. I went to school, in the meantime, and was just the usual sort of schoolboy. I was cruel to animals, a vulgar little rascal, in the meantime; and it was only in those free hours that I wandered and dreamt. And, when I now look at your boy, who is like a little man, I sometimes think, how is it possible that he is like this and that I was like that, at the same age?"
She made an effort to smile.
