“There are some things which no man can stand,” said the other, “and that was one. Your talk of the soul is very fine; but do you say that you don't love a woman's body as well as her soul?” Senhouse was silent for a while; then he said, “No,--I can't say that. You have me there. I ought to, but I can't. And I think I owe you an apology for my heat, for the fact is that I've been in much of your position myself. There was a man once upon a time that I felt like thrashing--for much of your reason. But I didn't do it--for what seemed to me unanswerable reason. I did precisely the opposite--I did everything I could to ensure a miserable marriage for the being I loved best in all the world. I loathed the man, I loathed the bondage; but that's what I did. Now mark what follows. I didn't--I couldn't--degrade her; but I saw myself dragging like a worm in the mud while she soared out of my reach. And there I've been--of the slime slimy ever since. Where she is now I don't know, but I think in heaven. Heaven lay in her eyes--and whenever I look at the sky at night I see her there.” “You are talking above my head,” said the stranger, “or above your own. Either I am a fool, or you a madman. You love a woman, and give her to another man? You love her, and secure her in slavery? You love her, and don't want her?” “It is I that am the fool, not you,” said Senhouse. “I do want her. I want nothing else in earth or heaven. And yet I know that I have her for ever. Our souls have touched each other. She is mine and I am hers. And yet I want her.” “Won't you get her? Don't you believe that you will?” “God knows! God knows!” “She was beautiful?” “The dawn,” said Senhouse, “was not more purely lovely than she. The dawn was in her face--the awfulness of it as well as its breathless beauty.” “My mistress,” said the young man, “had the gait of a goddess in the corn. One thought of Demeter in the wheat. She was like ivory under the moon. She laughed rarely, but her voice was low and thrilled.” “Her breath,” Senhouse continued, “was like the scent of bean-flowers. She sweetened the earth. It is true that she laughed seldom, but when she did the sun shone from behind a cloud. When she was silent you could hear her heart beat. She was deliberate, measured in all that she did--yet her spirit was as swift as the south-west wind. She did nothing that was not lovely, and never faltered in what she purposed. When first I came to know her and see the workings of her noble mind, I was so happy in the mere thought of her that I sang all day as I worked or walked. It never entered me for one minute that I could desire anything but the knowledge of her.”