It is a dear but delicate thing to chronicle that matters of sex were practically untouched by the mind of the woman in so far as Routledge was concerned. Not at all did she despise these matters; nor is it to be inferred that she was one of those miraculous innocents who reach maturity with a mind virgin to the mysteries of creation. She had felt with a thrilling, exquisite sense the imperious young summer of her life, and all that throbbing veins and swift-running dreams mean under the steady stars.... But the call to her out of all creation--which was the voice of Routledge--was vital with a rounder and more wonderful vibrance. One art of his that had found the heart of her was his conception of the inner loveliness of life. He caught the finer relation of things. He could love the lowliest, hunger with them, and realize in their midst the brotherhood of man. He perceived the great truths everywhere which purely physical men, of necessity, must miss. His discovery of Rawder was great with meaning to Noreen, and his adoration for those silent sacrifices which summed into a life of glory unobserved by the world. He could love India without hating England. He could be the greatest of war-scribes and despise war. He laughed at material possessions and bowed before breech-clout chivalry. He had witnessed processes of life and death in their most cruel, intricate, and abominable manifestations, but had preserved his optimism. This, which so many words are required even to suggest--and which is covered in the single expression, _soul growth_--was the rousing, irresistible appeal of Routledge to the woman whose spiritual age was sufficient to respond to it. The man’s intellect--in contrast to the enchanting mystic element of his mind--compelled, stimulated, and enfolded her own. When Routledge talked, such a sympathy was aroused within her that she could watch the play of scenes before his eyes, the tithe of which only he told. In all that he had said and written she found the same smooth-running, high-powered intelligence. She had never touched his limitations, therefore infinity could hold no greater delights. She loved the harmony of his talents and the sterling, one-pointed direction of a man whose life is apart from the complicated lives of modern men. All dimensions of knowledge were in his mind; and yet its surfaces were free from taints and scar-tissue, preserved with virginities. His thoughts had that firm delicacy of the strong, and some of his thoughts had ripened in mystic suns and rains.