ad
firm in his grasp. Ellen talked of his coming, and she planned that she
should meet this my one friend in the environment she loved best--in my
rooms, whose atmosphere, she declared, belonged to an earlier time and
place. (She found in me Nolly Goldsmith and all of Grub Street.) So they
met at the tea-table in my study, and a great warmth stole over your
father. He spoke without looking at either of us, while Ellen looked as
if her destiny had just begun.

Without, it rained. I strode to the window and in a dazed way stared at
the lamp-post which was sticking out its flaming little tongue to the
night. Why was I mocked? There was no mocking and there should have been
no bitterness. Of that there was none either, after a while.

Ellen put her hand on my hair, and a strong primal emotion rose in me.
In that moment civilisation was as if it had not been. I reverted to the
primitive. The blood of forgotten ancestors, cave-men and river-men,
reasoned me my ethics. I turned to her, met her flushed cheeks and moved
being and the glory of dawning in her eyes. I measured my strength with
hers and your father's, Herbert. Easily, great strength was mine in my
passion, easily I could carry her off!

You, too, have had moments of upheaval when you heard the growling of
the tiger and the bear, when the brute crowded out the man. Then your
soul writhed in derision, you scoffed at that which you had held to be
the nobility of the soul, and you minced words satirically over the
exquisiteness of the type which we have evolved. Then the experiment of
life turned farce, the heavens fell about your ears and "Fool!" was upon
your lips. Oh, the hurricane that sweeps over the soul when it is
cheated of its joy! In the first instant of Ellen's indifference, when I
felt myself pushed out of her life, I forgot everything but my desire.
I could not renounce her. I was in the throes of the passion for
ownership.

Gentle girl between whom and myself there had been naught but sweetness
and fellowship! How often had we talked large (we were very young!) of
our sublimities and potentialities, how often had we pictured tragedies
of surrender and greatened in the speaking! Ah, it should come true. For
her and for me there must be miracles, and there were. So was the
strength of the spirit proven, so was it shown to be "pure waft of the
Will." So was I confirmed in the creed which believes that to keep we
must lose, and to live we must die. So was