to terrible, overwhelming voltaic force, something
strange and massive, at the first treacherous touch of the man's
determined hand. His strength was so different from hers--quick,
muscular, lambent. But hers was deep and heaving, like the strange
heaving of an earthquake, or the heave of a bull as it rises from
earth. And by sheer non-human power, electric and paralysing, she
could overcome the brawny red-headed fellow.

He was nearly a match for her. But she did not like him. The two
were enemies--and good acquaintances. They were more or less
matched. But as he found himself continually foiled, he became
sulky, like a bear with a sore head. And then she avoided him.

She really liked Young and James much better. James was a quick,
slender, dark-haired fellow, a gentleman, who was always trying to
catch her out with his quickness. She liked his fine, slim limbs,
and his exaggerated generosity. He would ask her out to ridiculously
expensive suppers, and send her sweets and flowers, fabulously
recherche. He was always immaculately well-dressed.

"Of course, as a lady _and_ a nurse," he said to her, "you are two
sorts of women in one."

But she was not impressed by his wisdom.

She was most strongly inclined to Young. He was a plump young man of
middle height, with those blue eyes of a little boy which are so
knowing: particularly of a woman's secrets. It is a strange thing
that these childish men have such a deep, half-perverse knowledge of
the other sex. Young was certainly innocent as far as acts went. Yet
his hair was going thin at the crown already.

He also played with her--being a doctor, and she a nurse who
encouraged it. He too touched her and kissed her: and did _not_
rouse her to contest. For his touch and his kiss had that nearness
of a little boy's, which nearly melted her. She could almost have
succumbed to him. If it had not been that with him there was no
question of succumbing. She would have had to take him between her
hands and caress and cajole him like a cherub, into a fall. And
though she would have like to do so, yet that inflexible stiffness
of her backbone prevented her. She could not do as she liked. There
was an inflexible fate within her, which shaped her ends.

Sometimes she wondered to herself, over her own virginity. Was it
worth much, after all, behaving as she did? Did she care about it,
anyhow? Didn't she rather despise it? To sin in thought was as bad
as to sin in act. If the t