mething in the clear, long line of her limbs, in her voice,
in her general physical quality, to convince Benham that she was the
freest, finest, bravest spirit that he had ever encountered.

In the papers he left behind him was to be found his perplexed
endeavours to explain this mental leap, that after all his efforts still
remained unexplained. He had been vividly impressed by the decision and
courage of her treatment of the dogs; it was just the sort of thing
he could not do. And there was a certain contagiousness in the petting
admiration with which her family treated her. But she was young and
healthy and so was he, and in a second mystery lies the key of the
first. He had fallen in love with her, and that being so whatever he
needed that instantly she was. He needed a companion, clean and brave
and understanding....

In his bed in the Ship that night he thought of nothing but her before
he went to sleep, and when next morning he walked on his way over
the South Downs to Chichester his mind was full of her image and of a
hundred pleasant things about her. In his confessions he wrote, "I felt
there was a sword in her spirit. I felt she was as clean as the wind."

Love is the most chastening of powers, and he did not even remember now
that two days before he had told the wind and the twilight that he would
certainly "roll and rollick in women" unless there was work for him to
do. She had a peculiarly swift and easy stride that went with him in his
thoughts along the turf by the wayside halfway and more to Chichester.
He thought always of the two of them as being side by side. His
imagination became childishly romantic. The open down about him with its
scrub of thorn and yew became the wilderness of the world, and through
it they went--in armour, weightless armour--and they wore long swords.
There was a breeze blowing and larks were singing and something,
something dark and tortuous dashed suddenly in headlong flight from
before their feet. It was an ethical problem such as those Mrs.
Skelmersdale nursed in her bosom. But at the sight of Amanda it had
straightened out--and fled....

And interweaving with such imaginings, he was some day to record, there
were others. She had brought back to his memory the fancies that had
been aroused in his first reading of Plato's REPUBLIC; she made him
think of those women Guardians, who were the friends and mates of men.
He wanted now to re-read that book and the LAWS. He could