Now this woman, whom he despised, who had outraged the deepest feeling of his life, had become, in some inexplicable manner, the embodiment of these inconsequent dreams. Her deep eyes, shadowed with sorrow as the tarn by the mountain height; the trick of her sigh, the balm of her rare smile; the melody of her voice, those low tones that seemed as charged with mystery as the wind by the whispers of the forest depths, all were as Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn.... She was a vision of poetry that could be lived, that could become part of a man’s very flesh and blood! Of a sudden he realised it. His heart gave a great leap and then seemed to stand still; but the habit of years and the hard common sense of his nature asserted themselves in violent reaction. He coloured to the roots of his hair in shame at the monstrousness, the absurdity of the thought, to which his idle dissatisfied mood had led him. The girl saw his emotion and innocently attributed it to quite another cause; connected it with the expression of his glance when it had rested upon her. The song awoke once more in her heart, circling higher and higher like a June lark. Renewed joy began to bubble from her lips in laughter and talk. When they emerged from the copse to the top of the downs, where the road dipped into the hollow, she halted, with an exclamation. "See," she cried, "the grass looks all gold and silver! And oh! did any one ever behold anything so pale, pale, so blue, blue as the sky! Oh! isn’t this better than India; don’t you love it; wouldn’t you like to put your arm round England and kiss her?" "England, the mother; India, the mistress," thought Bethune. Then, at a maddening tangent flight, his mind took wing. The words of Dr. Châtelard came back upon him. "Cold, that woman? Touch that coldness and be burnt to the bone!" He revolted from his own soul as it flamed within him. He would have liked to set off running across the frozen downs to that far violet line where washed the sea; to have plunged into the icy waves, into the bitter turmoil of the living waters, to wash the degrading madness from him. Aspasia’s fresh laugh brought his spirit back to her with a renewed revulsion. "Look, look," she cried once more, "there’s Muhammed’s turban going up and down, and up and down, the garden path! I wonder what he’s thinking of? Not Runkle’s monumental work, I’m sure. Ugh! I declare it’s uncanny only to look at that absurd turban in this winter land. It’s bad enough to have Jani chattering about the house like a human castanet, without having that creature tramping up and down outside the window, day after day. Major Bethune, I wish you’d speak to the creature—and find out what he is up to. I never saw anything so restless in my life."