marble or many colours to my eyes is
the sound of a poet singing in my ears--"

"For whom, Silencieux, did you step down into the sad waters of the
Seine?"

"It was a young poet of Paris, beloved of many women, a drunkard of
strange dreams. He too died because he loved me, and when he died there
was none left whose voice seemed sweet after his. So I died with him. I
died with him," she repeated, "to come to life again with you. Many
lips have been pressed to mine, Antony, since the cold sleep of the
Seine fell over me, but none were warm and wild like yours. I loved my
sleep while the others kissed me, but with the touch of your lips the
dreams of life began to stir within me again. O Antony, be great enough,
be all mine, that we may fulfil our dream; and perhaps, Antony, I will
die with you--and leave the world in darkness for your sake, another
hundred years."

Exalted above the earth with the joy of Silencieux's words, Antony
pressed his lips to hers in an ecstasy, and vowed his life and all
within it inviolably to her.

CHAPTER VIII

A STRANGE KISS FOR SILENCIEUX

One hot August afternoon Antony took Silencieux with him to a
bramble-covered corner of the dark moor which bounded his little wood. A
ruined bank soaked with sunshine, a haunt of lizards, a catacomb of
little lives that creep and run and whisper, made their seat.

Silencieux's face, out there under the open sky and in the full blaze of
the sun, at once lost and gained in reality; gained by force of a
contrast which accentuated while it limited her, lost by opposition to
the great faces of earth and sky. Her life, so concentrated, so
self-absorbed, seemed more of an essence, potently distilled, compared
with this abounding ichor of existence, that audibly sang in brimming
circulation through the veins of this carelessly immortal earth.

For some moments of self-conscious thought she shrank into a symbol,--a
symbol of but one of the elements of the mighty world. Yet to this
element did not all the others, more brutal in force, more extended in
space, conspire?

So in some hours will the most mortal maid of warmest flesh and blood
become an abstraction to her lover--sometimes shrink to the significance
of one more flower, and sometimes expand to the significance of a
microcosm, a firmament in mystical miniature.

Thus in like manner for Antony did Silencieux alternate between reality
and dream that afternoon, though all the time he knew