hough known to them, so
distinctly another method to the same end, that they could not, with all
their effort, get the point of view of the male creature whose desires
quite ignore parentage and seek only for what we euphoniously term "the
joys of love."

When I tried to tell Ellador that women too felt so, with us, she drew
away from me, and tried hard to grasp intellectually what she could in
no way sympathize with.

"You mean--that with you--love between man and woman expresses itself in
that way--without regard to motherhood? To parentage, I mean," she added
carefully.

"Yes, surely. It is love we think of--the deep sweet love between two.
Of course we want children, and children come--but that is not what we
think about."

"But--but--it seems so against nature!" she said. "None of the creatures
we know do that. Do other animals--in your country?"

"We are not animals!" I replied with some sharpness. "At least we
are something more--something higher. This is a far nobler and more
beautiful relation, as I have explained before. Your view seems to us
rather--shall I say, practical? Prosaic? Merely a means to an end! With
us--oh, my dear girl--cannot you see? Cannot you feel? It is the last,
sweetest, highest consummation of mutual love."

She was impressed visibly. She trembled in my arms, as I held her close,
kissing her hungrily. But there rose in her eyes that look I knew so
well, that remote clear look as if she had gone far away even though
I held her beautiful body so close, and was now on some snowy mountain
regarding me from a distance.

"I feel it quite clearly," she said to me. "It gives me a deep sympathy
with what you feel, no doubt more strongly still. But what I feel, even
what you feel, dearest, does not convince me that it is right. Until I
am sure of that, of course I cannot do as you wish."

Ellador, at times like this, always reminded me of Epictetus. "I will
put you in prison!" said his master. "My body, you mean," replied
Epictetus calmly. "I will cut your head off," said his master. "Have I
said that my head could not be cut off?" A difficult person, Epictetus.

What is this miracle by which a woman, even in your arms, may withdraw
herself, utterly disappear till what you hold is as inaccessible as the
face of a cliff?

"Be patient with me, dear," she urged sweetly. "I know it is hard for
you. And I begin to see--a little--how Terry was so driven to crime."

"Oh, come, that's a pret