e note his hand had written, pulsing to the rhythm of her
breathing; but the memories failed her. Memories were for absence; and
he was here; and he had _not_ come. If only he would come now, how she
would greet him, holding him unflinchingly to his resolution, of
course, and of course; but as a kind of second thought in the back of
her head, the under motive beneath all the clamor of light upper notes,
she knew to the inmost core of her being that she was wishing he would
come now because her father was out and she was alone and could greet
him as flesh and spirit, heart and mind, cried out to greet him; to
touch him; to spend themselves upon him in a fierce proud abandon of
love and gladness; to give and take, and give and take again, till,
till--what? Was this the way to keep him standing strong to his
resolutions?

And shall we blame her? Does the beautiful thing we call life spring
from postulates and rules and mathematics; or from the spirit's altar
fires? And I confess I never see the thing we call vice but I wonder
did it not spring from the burning of the refuse heap, which poor
humans have mistaken for altar fires?

She heard her father come in late, slamming the mosquito door behind
him, and pass across the dark living room to his own chamber without
saying good night. Once, she thought she saw a white sailor hat
through the cottonwood hovering along the road. Then, as she looked,
the white sailor seemed accompanied by a panama; and she crept into her
room with fevered hands and heavy heart, snacking the mosquito door
behind her. There was the companion bang of a door being hooked below,
old Calamity keeping watch as usual and only turning in, when she heard
Eleanor going to bed. Eleanor waited till all was quiet. Then, she
drew the burlap portiere across the mosquito door, and lighted her
candle, and began writing,--writing what? Was it some dildo of
oriental song she had read in Europe; was it the burden of some Indian
chant stirring vaguely in her unconscious blood; or was it but the
simple love cry of primitive Woman, of that woman who wandered round
about the streets of Jerusalem calling her lover? "My flesh cries out
to touch you, my beloved," she wrote; "my hands are hungry to touch
you, and my spirit is hungrier than my hands. When you were absent, I
drank of memories; but now, you are back, the shadow waters have gone;
I must have the living. If I could see you but once, I know this wi