He was delirious, breathless at times when she bared to him her rare, sublimated passion, yet there was in her a quality which awed him, while she enkindled him. Cis loved him with all the forces of her royal human nature, yet with it she also loved him with a purity of soul that frightened the man, ten years her elder, versed in the ways of lesser women. Crimson as a flame fed by her lifeblood burned her love upon the altar she erected to it, but over and above the red flame of human love, burned a white flame of utter devotion, idealization, spiritual detachment; it dominated and sublimated the love that, though it was rare, yet was lower than this, its supplement. Wonderful in a girl whose life had not trained her for the highest form of love, was this purity of aim which Rodney recognized at all times in her. Rodney himself arose to reverence this idealized love, to defer to it. He was not a man whose life was notably better, nor was it worse than the average man’s life. He had thrown off his religion because it would have thwarted him; because its law bore heavily upon his particular case; because it never had meant much to him, and this world fully engrossed him. He meant to be both rich and happy; he had intended to marry ambitiously, but Cis had come, with her red hair, and it had burned like dross everything that would have stood between her and him. He had fallen in love with Cicely Adair passionately and honestly; to get her and hold her his he was more than ready to throw over any other woman, however full her hands might have been when he had espoused her. After he had won Cis, Rodney was ready to stake anything on himself; he felt that he was sure to get the worldly goods which he craved. Cis must be first. Now that he had Cis, he knew that, even if he missed the riches, he should be rich. She filled his horizon, filled his eyes and heart, yet she held him indescribably above himself; she humbly worshipped him, abasing herself with wonder that such as he should love her, yet never descended to what Rodney himself knew was his natural level, nor ever for an instant suspected that she held him down while she lifted him up by assuming that he was the type of man whom Arthur tried to form to sit at his Round Table.