[224:1] The descriptive phrase above might really, at a pinch, be applied to Annabella Milbanke. [236:1] Note the fierceness achieved by the shortening and the alliteration in this line. [238:1] Mark how the deferred rhymes paint the groping thoughts. Only after much questioning can the answer come, as it were, in the "chime of the rhyme." [239:1] And men also, I hasten to add, that there may be no pluming of male feathers--if indeed this be an occasion for pluming on either side. PART IV [Illustration: THE WIFE] I A WOMAN'S LAST WORD They are married, and they have come to a spiritual crisis. She does not, cannot, think as _he_ thinks. But does thinking signify? She loves--is not that enough? Can she not have done with thinking, or at all events with talking about thinking? Perhaps, with every striving, she shall achieve no more than that: to _say_ nothing, to use no influence, to yield the sanctioned woman's trophy of the "last word." . . . Shall she, then, be yielding aught of value, if she contends no more? "What so wild as words are?" --and that _they_ should strive and argue! Why, it is as when birds debate about some tiny marvel of those marvellous tiny lives, while the hawk spies from a bough above. "See the creature stalking While we speak! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek!" For that hawk is ever watching life: it stands for the mysterious effluence which falls on joy and kills it; and that may just as well be "talking" as aught else! He shall have his own way--or no: that is a paltry yielding. There shall _be_ no way but his. "What so false as truth is, False to thee?" She abandons then the cold abstraction; she does not even wish to "know": "Where the apple reddens Never pry-- Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I. Be a god and hold me With a charm! Be a man and fold me With thine arm! Teach me, only teach, Love! As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought-- Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands." * * * * * But even as she measures and exults in the abjection of herself, a voice whispers in her soul that this is not the way. Something is wrong. She hears, but cannot heed. It must be so, since he desires it--since he can desire it. Since he _can_ . . . "That shall be to-morrow, Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight: --Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me!) And so fall asleep, Love, Loved by thee." He does not wish to know the real Herself. Then the real herself shall "sleep"; all shall be as before. + + + + +