‘Then it is because you are part and parcel of my inner self that you seem so real and intimate and—true?’ he asked passionately. ‘Of course. I am in your very blood; I beat in your heart; I understand your every passion and emotion, because I am present at their birth. The most fleeting of your dreams finds its reflection in me; your spirit’s faintest aspiration runs through me like a trumpet call; and, now that you have found me, we need never, we _can_ never, separate!’ The passion of her words broke over his heart like a wave. He felt himself trembling. ‘But it is all so swift and wonderful that it makes me almost afraid—afraid it cannot last,’ he objected, knowing all the time that his words were but a common device to make his pleasure the more real. ‘If only, oh, if only I could carry you away with me into that outer world——!’ She laughed deliciously in his face. ‘It is from that very “outer world” that you have carried me _in here_,’ she told him softly, ‘for I am always with you.’ And with the words came that fugitive trick of voice and gesture that made him certain he knew her—then was gone again. ‘In the house with your sister and the children,’ she continued; ‘when you write your Aventures and your verses; in your daily round of duties, small and great; and when you lie down at night—ah! especially then—I curl up beside you in your heart, and fly with you through all your funny dreamland, and wake your dear eyes with a kiss so soft you never know it. In your early morning rambles, as in your reveries of the dusk, I never leave you—because I cannot. All day long I am beside you, though you little realise my presence. I share half your pleasures and all your pains. And in return you hand over to me half that soul whose unuttered prayers have thus created me afresh for your salvation.’ ‘But it must be my own voice speaking,’ he cried inwardly, satisfied and happy beyond belief. ‘It is the words of my own thoughts that I hear!’ ‘Because I am your own thoughts speaking,’ she replied instantly, as though he had uttered aloud. ‘I lie, you see, behind your inmost thoughts!’ They walked through sunny meadows, picking their way among islands of wild flowers. There was no sound but the murmur of wind and river, and the singing of birds. Fleecy clouds, here and there in the blue, hung cool and white, watching them. The whole world, Paul felt, listened without shyness.