of the
vague and the unknown--of the unforeseen and of the sudden; of a being
strong, dangerous, alive, and human, ready to be enslaved.

She felt that he was ready. She felt it with the unerring intuition of a
primitive woman confronted by a simple impulse. Day after day, when they
met and she stood a little way off, listening to his words, holding him
with her look, the undefined terror of the new conquest became faint and
blurred like the memory of a dream, and the certitude grew distinct,
and convincing, and visible to the eyes like some material thing in full
sunlight. It was a deep joy, a great pride, a tangible sweetness that
seemed to leave the taste of honey on her lips. He lay stretched at her
feet without moving, for he knew from experience how a slight movement
of his could frighten her away in those first days of their intercourse.
He lay very quiet, with all the ardour of his desire ringing in his
voice and shining in his eyes, whilst his body was still, like death
itself. And he looked at her, standing above him, her head lost in the
shadow of broad and graceful leaves that touched her cheek; while the
slender spikes of pale green orchids streamed down from amongst the
boughs and mingled with the black hair that framed her face, as if
all those plants claimed her for their own--the animated and brilliant
flower of all that exuberant life which, born in gloom, struggles for
ever towards the sunshine.

Every day she came a little nearer. He watched her slow progress--the
gradual taming of that woman by the words of his love. It was the
monotonous song of praise and desire that, commencing at creation, wraps
up the world like an atmosphere and shall end only in the end of all
things--when there are no lips to sing and no ears to hear. He told
her that she was beautiful and desirable, and he repeated it again
and again; for when he told her that, he had said all there was within
him--he had expressed his only thought, his only feeling. And he watched
the startled look of wonder and mistrust vanish from her face with the
passing days, her eyes soften, the smile dwell longer and longer on her
lips; a smile as of one charmed by a delightful dream; with the slight
exaltation of intoxicating triumph lurking in its dawning tenderness.

And while she was near there was nothing in the whole world--for that
idle man--but her look and her smile. Nothing in the past, nothing in
the future; and in the present only the