wn
eyes, "dear wonderful eyes," as Faircloth, her brother, so deliciously
called them. And with that her mouth curved into a smile, sight of which
brought recognition, new and very moving, of her own by no means
inconsiderable beauty.

She went red, and then white almost as her white nightdress and the white
pillows behind her. Laid the mirror hastily down, and held her face in
both hands as--as Carteret had held it last night, at the moment of
parting, when he had kissed not her lips but her forehead. Yet very
differently, since she now held it with strained, clinging fingers, which
hurt, making marks upon the flesh.--For could it be that--the other kind
of love, such as men bear the woman of their choice, which dictated
Carteret's unfailing goodness to her--the love that he had bitterly and
almost roughly defended when she praised the love of brother and sister
as dearest, purest, and therefore above all best?

Was it conceivable this hero of a hundred almost fabulous adventures, of
hair-breath escapes, and cunningly defied dangers in Oriental,
semi-barbarous, wholly gorgeous, camps, Courts and cities, this
philosopher of gently humorous equanimity, who appeared to weigh all
things in an equal balance and whom she had regarded as belonging to an
age and order superior to her own, had set his affections upon her
singling her out from among all possible others? That he wanted her for
his own, wanted her exclusively and as his inseparable companion, the
object of--

A sentence from the English marriage service flashed across her
mind.--"With my body I thee worship," it ran, "and with all my worldly
goods I thee endow."

"With my body I thee worship"--He, her father's elect and beloved friend,
in whom she had always so beautifully trusted, who had never failed her,
the dear man with the blue eyes--and she, Damaris? Her womanhood,
revealed to itself, at once shrank back bewildered, panic-stricken, and,
passion-stricken, called to her aloud.

For here Carteret's grace of bearing and of person, his clean health,
physical distinction and charm, arose and confronted her. The visible,
tangible attributes of the man--as man--presented themselves in fine
relief, delighting her, stirring her heretofore dormant senses, begetting
in her needs and desires undreamed of until now, and, even now, in
substance incomprehensible. She was enchanted, fevered, triumphant; and
then--also incomprehensibly--ashamed.

As the minutes passe