The crimson, the purple had been explored; from them he had come back deep-stained. How has the yellow used him? He has placed himself again for judgment before her "blank pure soul, alike the source and tomb of that prismatic glow." To this yellow he has subjected himself utterly: she _had_ ordained it! He was to "bathe, to burnish himself, soul and body, to swim and swathe in yellow licence." And here he is: "absurd and frightful," "suffused with crocus, saffron, orange"--just as he had been with crimson, purple! She willed it so: he was to track the yellow ray. He pleads once more her own permission--nay, command! And, as before, she shows "Scarce recognition, no approval, some Mistrust, more wonder at a man become Monstrous in garb, nay--flesh-disguised as well, Through his adventure." But she had said that, if he were worthily to retain her love, he must share the knowledge shrined in her supernal eyes. And this was the one way for _man_ to gain that knowledge. Well, it is as before: "I pass into your presence, I receive Your smile of pity, pardon, and I leave." But no! This time he will not leave, he will not dumbly bend to his penance. Hitherto he has trusted her word that the feat can be achieved, the ray trod to its edge, yet he return unsmirched. He has tried the experiment--and returned, "absurd as frightful." This is his last word. ". . . No, I say: No fresh adventure! No more seeking love At end of toil, and finding, calm above My passion, the old statuesque regard, The sad petrific smile!" And he turns upon her with a violent invective. She is not so much hard and hateful as mistaken and obtuse. "You very woman with the pert pretence To match the male achievement!" _Who_ could not be victorious when all is made easy, when the rough effaces itself to smooth, the gruff "grinds down and grows a whisper"; when man's truth subdues its rapier-edge to suit the bulrush spear that womanly falsehood fights with? Oh woman's ears that will not hear the truth! oh woman's "thrice-superfine feminity of sense," that ignores, as by right divine, the process, and takes the spotless result from out the very muck that made it! But he breaks off. "Ah me!" he cries, "The true slave's querulous outbreak!" And forth again, all slavishly, at her behest he fares. Who knows but _this_ time the "crimson quest" may deepen to a sunrise, not decay to that cold sad sweet smile--which he obeys? + + + + +