It is possible that I may have looked a little incredulous, for she fixed her eyes full upon mine, leaning across the counter, and whispered something to me. I do not see that I am called upon to write down what she said. It was quite personal and private. If I did record it, it would probably be misunderstood. But it answered its purpose. It made me feel that she knew me indeed, that here I had no impression to make and none to mar. There was no longer any barrier of reserve between us. “And at last you have come to me,” she said. “No one can overhear us; we are quite alone.” My cheeks were flushed and my voice trembled. “You do not talk,” I said, “as the women I met on earth, nor as Joseph and James did. No earthly woman that I know would have whispered to me the things that you did.” “You are not angry with me for it?” she said. I loved her for it, but I could not tell her so. For a moment or two I gazed at her in a kind of rapture. “You are very beautiful,” I said at last. “Yes; but that is not of any real consequence here. Here the body is always beautiful, because the spirit never spoils it. Would that I could alter your nature and make it like ours! But they told me that you would look at me as on your earth a man looks at a woman. I do not understand that. I do not know your way--ah, do not look at me so.” “I cannot help it; you draw my eyes towards you.” “Do not say that!” she cried, in a distressed voice. “Do not think of it. I can think, and speak, and love when I am not in the body. I almost wish that I had not come to you like this. If I had been only a voice I should still have desired you.” Like most people of a shy disposition, I have an occasional access of boldness. “Do you mean that you do not understand the kind of attraction that a woman has for a man? Do you not know what flushed cheeks, and longing looks, and trembling voice mean? And yet I could believe that the earthly love would be possible to you.” “The lower is always possible for the higher,” she said. “But that is not what I want. I long to-night to teach you the other love. But now that I am face to face with you I have no words. There are none in any language that will tell you. I want names for things of which you know nothing--things which with men and women of your world do not exist. I should feel no shame in speaking to you of it, for there is no shame in our love. Your love is full of shame. That was why at first I whispered to you. That was why I told you that no one could hear us. It was for your sake, not mine.” She stopped and sighed. “Why do you sigh?” I asked. “Because I cannot say what I want.” “Try,” I said. “No, it is no use now. What have you been buying?” I gave her a list of my purchases, and she went over them, as it seemed to me, a little sadly. “You have not bought the best things,” she said. “But they will cost you all that you have here, one gardenia and a sprig of maidenhair.”