tery about
who I am, and where I come from; I won't deny it: but it isn't by any
means so strange or so marvellous a mystery as you seem to imagine.
One of your own old sacred books says (as I remember hearing in the
joss-house I attended one day in London), 'God hath made of one blood
all the nations of the earth.' If for GOD in that passage we substitute
COMMON DESCENT, it's perfectly true. We are all of one race; and I
confess, when I talk to you, every day I feel our unity more and more
profoundly." He bent over on the bench and took her tremulous hand.
"Frida," he said, looking deep into her speaking dark eyes, "don't you
yourself feel it?"

He was so strange, so simple-minded, so different in every way from all
other men, that for a moment Frida almost half-forgot to be angry with
him. In point of fact, in her heart, she was not angry at all; she
liked to feel the soft pressure of his strong man's hand on her dainty
fingers; she liked to feel the gentle way he was stroking her smooth arm
with that delicate white palm of his. It gave her a certain immediate
and unthinking pleasure to sit still by his side and know he was full
of her. Then suddenly, with a start, she remembered her duty: she was a
married woman, and she OUGHT NOT to do it. Quickly, with a startled
air, she withdrew her hand. Bertram gazed down at her for a second, half
taken aback by her hurried withdrawal.

"Then you don't like me!" he cried, in a pained tone; "after all, you
don't like me!" One moment later, a ray of recognition broke slowly over
his face. "Oh, I forgot," he said, leaning away. "I didn't mean to annoy
you. A year or two ago, of course, I might have held your hand in mine
as long as ever I liked. You were still a free being. But what was right
then is wrong now, according to the kaleidoscopic etiquette of your
countrywomen. I forgot all that in the heat of the moment. I recollected
only we were two human beings, of the same race and blood, with hearts
that beat and hands that lay together. I remember now, you must hide and
stifle your native impulses in future: you're tabooed for life to Robert
Monteith: I must needs respect his seal set upon you!"

And he drew a deep sigh of enforced resignation.

Frida sighed in return. "These problems are so hard," she said.

Bertram smiled a strange smile. "There are NO problems," he answered
confidently. "You make them yourselves. You surround life with taboos,
and then--you talk despairi