by one of her woman friends at a distance in the drawing room.
Our favorite place was the window seat in the library, heaped with
pillows and overlooking lilac and rose bushes, where we could see the
great elms, the fountain, the country beyond. We had many walks
together; and one afternoon we came to a place on a woodland path amid
hills, trees towering above us, a brook playing below us. The air was
hushed with a passionate Orpheus, and there I sensed her yearning. I
heard the rhythm of her flesh singing to me. Her hands were stretched
toward me, the pupils of her eyes grew wide as if a vision stood before
her. For the first time I kissed Isabel upon the lips.

Hitherto we had breathed the rarefied air of the peaks, seen the white
light of the upper spaces, felt the passionless gods about us. Now we
were descending the rich valleys, to the clustered vines, to the places
of soft sounds and voluptuous air, to havens of sleep, to the
replenishment of our souls in the bridal supper.

That night we sat again in the window seat. Her other guests faded here
and there. For a time there were shadowy fancies from the piano, then
the house was stilled. But outside an April rain was falling. It pelted
the windowpanes as softly as driven petals. It made a fairy swish as of
far-off waves, and we sat together in a dim light. Isabel's eyes were
closed. Her head rested partly on my shoulder, partly on a pillow. Her
hand lay limp in my hand. Her whole being was relaxed. We were quite
alone.

Isabel was with me body and mind. But a terror crept upon me. My very
hair trembled. I pressed her hand to my breast. It seemed only an act of
will, however, not of emotion. I drew her head close to my breast. All
these actions arrayed themselves before my detached observation.
Paralyzing self-analysis preoccupied me. I kissed her upon the brow, the
eyes, with pressure and strength upon the lips. I was not acting; I was
thinking out these demonstrations. The consciousness that I was
deceiving Isabel broke my emotional concentration. Could she sense that
my heart was beating, but with terror? Where were the flames that had
sung to me ethereally before? Where the song out of the flesh, but too
subtle for the ears of flesh? Yet I drew her closer to me, folded her
tightly against my breast. My imaginative strength was more and more
absorbed in self-analysis, into wonder as to what weakness had taken
place in me. For here was Isabel dissolved in my a