s: the intellectual love
of God more than replaced these terrestrial affections.

But now a sudden conviction that nothing could replace them, that they
were of the essence of personality, wrapped him round as with flame.
Some subtle aroma of emotion like the waft of the orange-groves of
Burgos in which his ancestors had wandered thrilled the son of the
mists and marshes. Perhaps it was only the conserve of red roses. At
any rate that was useless in this fever.

He took up his tools resolutely, but he could not work. He fell back
on his rough sketch for a lucid Algebra, but his lucid formulae were a
blur. He went downstairs and played with the delighted children and
listened to the landlady's gossip, throwing her a word or two of
shrewd counsel on the everyday matters that came up. Presently he
asked her if the van den Endes had told her anything of their plans.

"Oh, they were going to stay at Scheveningen for the bathing. The
second time they came up from there."

His heart leapt. "Scheveningen! Then they are practically here."

"If they have not gone back to Amsterdam."

"True," he said, chilled.

"But why not go see? Henri tramped ten miles for me every Sunday."

Spinoza turned away. "No, they are probably gone back. Besides, I know
not their address."

"Address? At Scheveningen! A village where everybody's business can be
caught in one net."

Spinoza was ascending the stairs. "Nay, it is too late."

Too late in sad verity! What had a philosopher of forty year to do
with love?

Back in his room he took up a lens, but soon found himself re-reading
his aphorism on Marriage. "It is plain that Marriage is in accordance
with Reason, if the desire is engendered not merely by external form,
but by a love of begetting children and wisely educating them; and if,
in addition, the love both of the husband and wife has for its cause
not external form merely, but chiefly liberty of mind." Assuredly, so
far as he was concerned, the desire of children, who might be more
rationally and happily nurtured than himself, had some part in his
rare day-dreams, and it was not merely the noble form but also the
noble soul he divined in Klaartje van den Ende that had stirred his
pulses and was now soliciting him to a joy which like all joys would
mark the passage to a greater perfection, a fuller reality. And in
sooth how holy was this love of woman he allowed himself to feel for a
moment, how easily passing over into the grea