Her hands did not cease from moving while I spoke. Now, in my silence, they moved. They clasped in anguish on her breast. They went to her brow. They tremored at her side. They were like flowers tremulous in a flame. She sat, swaying gently, like an agéd woman. I was silent. Her head turned, and she saw me. The glaze in her eyes grew as what she knew was measured with her sight. Her body was rigid. Her pain was freezing her. She swayed no more. And her hands were lifeless. I knelt before her. But I did not dare to touch her. I put forth my hands, but they remained suspended. For I did not dare to touch her. “Mildred,” I said, “save me.” She watched my hands, as if she wondered what these suppliant palms were going to do. “There is power in me, Mildred. And power, if it is happy, is divine. Do you now know how I have needed you? Have I not won you? Save me!” She watched my hands. They covered my face an instant. I stood up. And I stood over her. “Mildred, I have been ruthless. Yes. More ruthless than my mind would ever have conceived. Is that a weakness in me? I loved my parents. They were the only human beings in my life. I was ruthless, because I was in love with Beauty. I have used truth ... as it was revealed to me, vastly beyond our miserable sphere ... I have used truth, because I was in love with Beauty.” Her face was blanched as if some fire had seared it. Her eyes were like stones. Her beauty was a mask. I feared what I saw in her, for it was the worst of myself. “We must go on, now, Mildred. We dare not stop. You and I together with truth at our command, to create Beauty. To make Beauty live.... Mildred, will you save me?” Still she did not speak. She watched me from her place below me as I stood. But she watched my eyes. And her eyes were limpid again, and warm; their glaze had melted. “I have learned that Truth is cold. It is a cold that burns: terribly and relentless. Truth cares not for man, and man in love with it is like a moth who would possess the sun. Oh, have I learned too late! Man cannot live with Truth. And yet he loves it. So by a miracle, he turns it into Beauty. And he dwells with Beauty. Save me! Save me!” Her face broke, and her hands covered it. She wept. “My love, my love,” I said, “do you not understand? I want to be a man. And I have glimpsed the terrible face of truth. That is the curse of my will. Love, I want to be a man again ... to live ... to live in your love ... to live in Beauty. Save me!” She wept silently. Little waves of anguish welled with her breast, rose to her neck and her arms. She wept long. I knelt beside her. She knew me there. I did not touch her, but she knew me there. Would her weeping cease, and would her hands come to mine? She lifted her head. She did not look at me. She rose. I, kneeling, waited. Then, her eyes came down. I knew that I had lost her. I understood the pang across my eyes when first she came into the room: I knew that I had known that she was lost.