All that golden summer on the threshold of my manhood was filled by Mary. I loved her with the love of a boy and a man. Either I was with Mary or I was hoping and planning to be with Mary or I was full of some vivid[Pg 54] new impression of her or some enigmatical speech, some pregnant nothing, some glance or gesture engaged and my mind. In those days I slept the profound sweet sleep of youth, but whenever that deep flow broke towards the shallows, as I sank into it at night and came out of it at morning, I passed through dreams of Mary to and from a world of waking thought of her.  
There must have been days of friendly when it seemed we talked nothings and wandered and among subjects, but always we had our eyes on one another. And afterwards I would spend long hours in recalling and those nothings, questioning their nothingness, making out of things too submerged and impalpable for the rough drags of recollection, promises and indications. I would invent ingenious things to say, things pushing out suddenly from nothingness to extreme significance. I rehearsed a hundred declarations.
 
It was easy for us to be very much together. We were very free that summer and life was all leisure. ............