They imitated the accents and concerns, caught at the gestures, of
maturity; but, even in the grip of beginning instincts, they were
hardly more sentient than the figures of a puppet show. Or, perhaps,
their world was so far from his that they couldn't be said to span from
one to the other. Gregory, in mind, was no more like him than a slip
was like a tree bearing fruit--no matter how bitter. Helena more nearly
resembled her mother; that had never occurred to him before.
It was undoubtedly true--her posturing recalled the feminine attitude
in extreme miniature. In that he felt outside her sympathy, she
belonged with her mother; to Gregory he was far more nearly allied.
Gregory, anyhow, had the potentialities of his own dilemma; he might,
in years to come, be drawn out of a present reality by the enigma, the
fascination, of Cytherea. Lee Randon hoped not; he wanted to advise
him, at once, resolutely to close his eyes to all visions beyond the
horizon of wise practicability. Marry, have children, be faithful, die,
he said; but, alas, to himself. Gregory, smiling in eager anticipation
of what might ensue, was necessarily ignorant of so much. Something
again lay back of that, Lee realized--his occupation in life. There he,
Lee, had made his first, perhaps most serious, mistake. While the
majority of men turned, indifferent, from their labor, there were a
rare few--hadn't he phrased this before?--lost in an edifice of the
mind, scientific or aesthetic or commercial, who were happily
unconscious of the lapsing fretful years.
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