But there was a change. A miraculous thing had happened. He was no longer Basine. He was a stranger in a strange world. He was holding her in his arms. An impossible sensation was in him. This was something he couldn't believe. He wanted to look at himself. He had his arms around her. But there was no woman in the circle of his arms. He was holding something that let his delirium escape. Torments were emptying themselves in the embrace. The miseries that had accumulated under the surface of his months of resistance, were leaving him, flying from him. His heart was growing unbearably light. "Oh!" he murmured. Her arms had tightened and he saw her eyes approach him. They were rapturous. She was warm, intimate, close to him. Her lips, still piquantly strange, were offering themselves. She was unlike everything he knew. A startling vigor, as if he had been changed into a rampaging giant, swept him as they kissed. He was great, strong. He could walk over the heads of the world. He had no need for further embrace. He stepped away, his face radiant. Ruth looked at him in confusion. This was a new Basine. He frightened. The mask was gone, the frown of preoccupation. She grew dizzy in the light of his eyes. He was a stranger. What should she call him? But he was talking to her in a voice that he seemed to have kept secret.... "I love you, Ruth. I love you." He laughed. She smiled uncertainly and felt that her face looked awkward. She could see the lines of her cheeks bulging as she lowered her eyes. This confused her and made her feel stiff. There had been something of this sort a few minutes ago in Paul Schroder when he had tried to take her hand. But now the thing she had noted calmly in Schroder seemed a puny imitation. Here it was real. He was laughing, softly, joyously. He was like a boy. Her heart filled with panic. She put her arms quickly around his neck and pressed herself close to him. The panic went out of her deliciously. "George, I love you. I'm so happy." They sat looking at each other, an excited smile in Basine's eyes. His body was tingling. A new sense had come. It lived in his fingers. He was holding her hand. His fingers were charged with an amazing energy. They seemed to have become part of a different person. He was able to enjoy the ecstasy that confused his fingers as if it were an external emotion. The rest of him was clear, almost tranquil. "Well," he said. It was still hard to talk. He was aware of incongruities. He was not Basine talking, not the new Basine, not the one whose fingers danced and throbbed. His voice belonged to other Basines--other characterizations whose awkward ghosts fluttered nervously in his thought. He would discuss this phenomenon. It was easy, after all. Be honest. She was one with whom he could be astonishingly honest. They were isolated. The world was a futility. There was an end to make-believe now. It was all honest, tranquil, joyous. He began again: