ould meet on
the dirty bed of gratification or the hard pallet of renunciation.
Because the untouched truth about her could give ecstasy one would not
lose the power of seeing things as they are, and she made one forget the
usual sexual story. Although she was formed for love and the intention
of being her lover was now a fundamental part of him, she was so busy
with her voice and body in playing quaint variations on the theme of
herself that he did not mind how long might be the journey to their
marriage. She was more interesting than any other person or thing in the
world. She was going to have more interesting experiences; because her
unique simplicity comprehended a wild impatience with lies she would
have a claim on reality that would give her unprecedented wisdom. Now he
could understand why saints in their narrow cells despise sinners as
dull stay-at-homes.

And when she burst into the room again he saw that all he had been
thinking about her was true. It might be that everybody else on earth
would see her as nothing but a red-haired girl in an ill-fitting blue
serge dress with an appalling tartan silk vest, but still it was true.

"Here you are," she said, "you put your name _there_." She bent over him
as he wrote and wished she could put something on the form to show how
magnificent he was and what a catch she had made for the movement.

Well, there was no possible excuse for staying any longer, and the poor
old lady was yawning behind her knitting. He rose and said good-bye,
wondering as he spoke how he could make his entrance here again and how
he could break it to these women, who were like hardy secular nuns, that
he came for love. If this had been a Spanish or a Cariocan mother and
daughter how easy it would have been! The elder woman's eyes would have
crackled brightly among her wrinkles and she would have looked at her
daughter with the air of genial treachery which old women wear when they
contrive a young girl's marriage, and she would have dropped some subtle
hint at the next convenient assignation; and the girl herself would have
stood by like a dark living scythe in the Latin attitude of modesty,
very straight from the waist to the feet, but the shoulders bent as if
to hide the bosom and the head bowed, mysteriously intimating that she
knew nothing and yet could promise to submit to everything. But here was
Mrs. Melville saying something quite vague about hoping that he would
drop in if he was pas