Men are always
being fooled by that: they see a face or hear a voice that starts
something or other going in them, and they supply a complete
personality just as they prefer it, like the filling of a pat? case.
That is what you have done with this doll--imagined a lot of things
that don't exist."
"If they do in me, that's enough, isn't it?" he demanded. "You're
partly wrong, at any rate--Cytherea is the originator and I'm the pat?.
But where, certainly, you are right is that she is only a
representation; and it is what she may represent which holds me.
Cytherea, if she would, could answer the most important question of my
life."
"How tragic that she can't speak."
"Yet that isn't necessary; she might be a guide, like a pointing
finger-post. I met a woman lately, as charming as possible, who
resembled her; and I'm sure that if I had them together--" he left the
end of his sentence in air. Then he began again, "But that could not be
managed; not much can, with advantage, in this world." From beyond the
hall, to the accompaniment of the piano, came the words, "She might
have been a mother if she hadn't looped the loop." Lee made a
disdainful gesture. "That is the tone of the present--anything is
acceptable if it is trivial; you may kiss wherever you like if you mean
nothing by it. But if it's important, say like--like sympathy, it's
made impossible for you.
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