You men don't, _can't_ realize, what that service means
to a girl. In those few moments she parts from all that have cherished
her, made her life, and gives her whole self, her love, her body, and
even her soul sometimes--for love often overwhelms us women--to _the_
man who, she believes, wants, _starves_, for her gifts. All that a woman
who marries for love feels at the altar I tell you a _man_ can't
understand! You treated this gift of mine, Dick, like a child does a
Santa Claus plaything--for a while you were never happy away from it,
then you grew accustomed to it, then you broke it, and now you have even
lost the broken pieces!
STERLING. [_Comes to her, growing more and more determined._] I will
_find_ them, and put them together again.
BLANCHE. [_Again smiles sadly and shakes her head._] First we made of
_every Tuesday_ a festival--our wedding anniversary. After a while we
kept the twenty-eighth of _every month_! The second year you were
satisfied with the twenty-eighth of April only, and last year you forgot
the day altogether. And yet what a happy first year it was!
STERLING. Ah, you see I _did_ make you happy once!
BLANCHE. Blessedly happy! Our long silences in those days were not
broken by an oath and a fling out of the room.
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