f that, to me the more real,
the more present. I looked forward to seeing her again, but with no
impatience, revelling rather in the anticipation than eager for the
realisation. As a creature of flesh and blood, the child I had played
with, talked with, touched, she had faded further and further into the
distance; as the vision of my dreams she stood out clearer day by day. I
knew that when next I saw her there would be a gulf between us I had
no wish to bridge. To worship her from afar was a sweeter thought to me
than would have been the hope of a passionate embrace. To live with her,
sit opposite to her while she ate and drank, see her, perhaps, with her
hair in curl-papers, know possibly that she had a corn upon her foot,
hear her speak maybe of a decayed tooth, or of a chilblain, would have
been torture to me. Into such abyss of the commonplace there was no fear
of my dragging her, and for this I was glad. In the future she would be
yet more removed from me. She was older than I was; she must be now a
woman. Instinctively I felt that in spite of years I was not yet a man.
She would marry. The thought gave me no pain, my feeling for her was
utterly devoid of appetite. No one but myself could close the temple
I had built about her, none deny to me the right of entry there. No
jealous priest could hide her from my eyes, her altar I had reared too
high. Since I have come to know myself better, I perceive that she stood
to me not as a living woman, but as a symbol; not a fellow human being
to be walked with through life, helping and to be helped, but that
impalpable religion of sex to which we raise up idols of poor human
clay, alas, not always to our satisfaction, so that foolishly we fall
into anger against them, forgetting they were but the work of our own
hands; not the body, but the spirit of love.

I allowed a week to elapse after receiving old Hasluck's letter before
presenting myself at Stamford Hill. It was late one afternoon in early
summer. Hasluck had not returned from the City, Mrs. Hasluck was out
visiting, Miss Hasluck was in the garden. I told the supercilious
footman not to trouble, I would seek her there myself. I guessed where
she would be; her favourite spot had always been a sunny corner, bright
with flowers, surrounded by a thick yew hedge, cut, after the Dutch
fashion, into quaint shapes of animals and birds. She was walking there,
as I had expected, reading a book. And again, as I saw her, came bac