Chapter XXI

What of her?—
How could she know me when a mask I wore?
Was not her sister pleased, when pleasing me?
Did Edith not please me, when pleasing her?
And so for Alice only seem’d her care;
And Alice was a fair and flippant naught,
An empty echo only of my love.
The sweetness of the family all had gone
To fill the elder Edith.
Then alas,
Too late, I learn’d my error. How I chafed,
Kept back from midnight strolls for sake of Alice!
And jogg’d from tête-a-têtes to give her place!
Then with her left, inspired alone to wish
To be like her a dunce; and thus to be
Like her, in some way, Edith’s all-in-all.