the morning and accepted the
invitation to meet young Rhodes, because these two, of all men living,
were for the moment dearest to him, as Diana Warwick's true and simple
champions; and he had intended a perfect cordiality toward them both;
the end being a semi-wrangle with the patriot, and a patronizing
bluntness with the boy; who, by the way, would hardly think him sincere
in the offer of a seat at his table. He owned himself incomplete. He
never could do the thing he meant, in the small matters not leading to
fortune. But they led to happiness! Redworth was guilty of a sigh: for
now Diana Warwick stood free; doubly free, he was reduced to reflect in
a wavering dubiousness. Her more than inclination for Dacier, witnessed
by him, and the shot of the world, flying randomly on the subject, had
struck this cuirassier, making light of his armour, without causing any
change of his habitual fresh countenance. As for the scandal, it had
never shaken his faith in her nature. He thought of the passion. His
heart struck at Diana's, and whatever might by chance be true in the
scandal affected him little, if but her heart were at liberty. That
was the prize he coveted, having long read the nature of the woman and
wedded his spirit to it. She would complete him.

Of course, infatuated men argue likewise, and scandal does not move
them. At a glance, the lower instincts and the higher spirit appear
equally to have the philosophy of overlooking blemishes. The difference
between appetite and love is shown when a man, after years of service,
can hear and see, and admit the possible, and still desire in worship;
knowing that we of earth are begrimed and must be cleansed for
presentation daily on our passage through the miry ways, but that our
souls, if flame of a soul shall have come of the agony of flesh, are
beyond the baser mischances: partaking of them indeed, but sublimely.
Now Redworth believed in the soul of Diana. For him it burned, and it
was a celestial radiance about her, unquenched by her shifting fortunes,
her wilfulnesses and, it might be, errors. She was a woman and weak;
that is, not trained for strength. She was a soul; therefore perpetually
pointing to growth in purification. He felt it, and even discerned it
of her, if he could not have phrased it. The something sovereignty
characteristic that aspired in Diana enchained him. With her, or rather
with his thought of her soul, he understood the right union of women
and me