t had fallen over him, and at one
and the same instant he longed to break the power of the spell and knew
that life would cease to be worth living if he were ever to do so. He
saw her eyes, like blue flowers in the soft dusk, and the mist of curls
on her temples stirred gently in the scented breeze that blew over the
garden. All the sweetness of the world was gathered into the little
space that she filled. Every impulse of joy he had ever felt--memories
of autumn roads, of starlit mountains, of summer fields where bees
drifted in golden clouds--all these were packed like honey into that
single minute of love. And with the awakening of passion, there came the
exaltation, the consciousness of illimitable possibilities which passion
brings to the young. Never before had he realized the power that was in
him! Never until this instant had he seen his own soul in the making!
All the unquenchable faith of youth burned at white heat in the flame
which his desire had kindled. He felt himself divided between an
invincible brutality and an invincible tenderness. He would have fought
with beasts for the sake of the gentle and passive creature beside him,
yet he would have died rather than sully the look of angelic goodness
with which she regarded him. To have her always gentle, always passive,
never reaching out her hand, never descending to his level, but sitting
forever aloof and colourless, waiting eternally, patient, beautiful and
unwearied, to crown the victory--this was what the conquering male in
him demanded.

"I ought to go," he said, so ineffectual was speech to convey the tumult
within his brain. "I am keeping you from the others."

She had shrunk back into the dimness beyond the circle of lanterns, and
he saw her face like a pale moon under the clustering rose-leaves. Her
very breath seemed suspended, and there was a velvet softness in her
look and in the gesture of timid protest with which she responded to his
halting words. She was putting forth all her woman's power as innocently
as the honeysuckle puts forth its fragrance. The white moths whirling in
their brief passion over the lantern-flame were not more helpless before
the movement of those inscrutable forces which we call Life. A strange
stillness surrounded her--as though she were separated by a circle of
silence from the dancers beyond the rose-crowned walls of the
summer-house--and into this stillness there passed, like an invisible
current, the very essence