Now Thyrsis had set out with mighty battlements reared about him; and not all the houris and the courtesans of all the ages could have found a way to breach them. But before those simple sentences of Corydon’s, uttered in her gentle voice, and with her maiden’s gaze of wonder--the battlements crumbled and rocked. And that was always the way of it. There were endless new explanations and new attitudes, new excursions and discoveries. They would part with a certain understanding, but they never knew with what view they would meet in the morning. They were swung from one extreme to the other, from certitude to doubt, from joy to dismay and despair. And so, day after day they would sit and talk, for uncounted hours. Corydon would come to the little cabin, or Thyrsis would come to the village, and they would wander about the roads or the woods, forgetting their meals, forgetting all the world. Once they wandered away into the mountains, and they sat until the dusk closed round them; they were almost lost that night. “Of course,” Thyrsis had been saying, “we should not be married like other men and women.” “No,” said Corydon, “of course not.” “We should be brother and sister,” he said. “Yes,” she assented. “And it would not be real marriage--I mean, it would be just for the world’s eyes.” “So I don’t see how it could hinder you,” Corydon added. “Whatever I did that was wrong, you would tell me. And then too, about money. I shouldn’t be any burden; for I have twenty-five dollars a month of my own.” “I had no idea of that,” said Thyrsis. “I’ve only had it for a year,” said Corydon. “An aunt left me nearly four thousand dollars. I can’t touch the principal until I’m thirty, but I have the income, and that will buy me everything I need. And so it would be just as if you didn’t have me to think of.” “I don’t think the money side matters so much,” was his reply. “It’s only this summer, you see--until I’ve finished the book.” Section 8. The key to all the future was the book; but alas, the book was not coming on. How could one write amid such excitement? This was a new kind of wine in Thyrsis’ blood. This was reality! And before it his dream-phantoms seemed to have dissolved into nothingness. They would make a compact for so many days, and he would start to work; but he would find himself thinking of Corydon, and new problems would arise, and he would take to writing her notes--and finally realize in despair that he might as well go and see her.