"Just so long as a woman has not the spiritual power to formulate her ideal of the one man of her heart, she must accept the nearest, the first or second or third, and must suffer her horrors of mis-mating. But all the time her dream is forming, literally making the one who belongs to her and no other. It builds out of her suffering. It comes out of agony and diffusion, even out of promiscuity. It is the ascent of woman’s character into an integrity which can only be touched by one human being. It is not touched if he does not come—" Romney stood before her, looking into two flashing points her eyes had become. "It does not play a fortnight—to find out if the man is the one. It does not play at all. It does not suffer from waiting because it does not live in sex. It does not meet its own on any basis of sex—not at first, even though it has passions powerful enough to fire the world—" "Anna Erivan—have I lost you—am I too far from the dream?" She arose and came nearer, the table no longer between them. "I tell you I hate myself because this has hurt me—" "And I tell you that this morning I feel abysses below you—that you are revealed to me higher than I knew and dreamed." "That first night, I thought it was he who had come to me ... and last night, running after you, I was sure—" He started forward, his arms outstretched, but remembered and fell back. "I said I would wait until you held out your arms—" Her face turned a little to the side, and he saw a smile suffuse with colour. "I did last night," she whispered. *13* That noon Bamban came and sat in the court for a little period, awaiting any word from his master. It was in Romney’s heart to tell him that he meant to start for Wampli to-morrow, and yet he had not spoken of that to Anna Erivan since morning, and he decided to wait until the last judgment of the woman was heard. Bamban smilingly departed, but back of the glittering eyes of the little man, the American fancied an expression: "You are a tarrier with women."