THE thought of entering the house revolted me. I needed the high heavens to give room for my happiness, the moon and the stars for confidants, the breeze of the night to cool the fever in my veins. To enter the house would be to break the spell, to bring me back again to that earth which my feet seemed scarcely to touch. So I retraced my steps to the white seat at the end of the garden, sat down where she had sat, and abandoned myself to a delicious reverie. I put all thought of the morrow from me--of the morrow when we must separate; all thought of that gray future which would never be brightened by sight of her, by the light of her eyes and the smile of her lips--all this I put away. I had only to close my eyes to bring her again to my side. What a miracle she was--what a wonder of God’s handiwork! The clear and delicate skin, the hair with its glint of gold, the eyes with their arched brows and upturned lashes, the lips trembling with sympathy or curving with scorn, the oval chin showing just a suspicion of a dimple, the rounded figure promising I know not what allurements and perfections--all these I contemplated one by one, and seemed to catch again that exquisite _odeur de femme_ which had ravished and intoxicated me as I held her in my arms. And behind and above all this, the soul--a woman’s soul in its delicacy and sweetness, yet with a certain manliness about it, too, in its high ideals, its conception of honor and duty, its courage and devotion, its reverence for the pledged word--something of the oak as well as of the ivy, almost as if she had been raised among men rather than among women, and had come to look at the world somewhat with a man’s eye. Yes, and there was something manlike, too, in her independence, her impatience of convention, her self-reliance. Not that all this destroyed or even clouded the woman in her--that quality of siren and coquette which is in every woman’s blood. Rather it enhanced it, gave it a sauce and piquancy not to be withstood. For a moment she had been mine--I had dared and been forgiven. She had been kind to me; she had been moved by my love; she had thrown me a flower at parting. And at thought of it, I took it from my bosom and pressed it to my lips. I inhaled its fragrance, which somehow seemed a part of her; I contemplated its beauty, in which I saw hers reflected. She had been kind to me. I even dared to think she had been kinder yet, did fate permit, and the thought gave me a throbbing joy--a selfish joy, I told myself, since I had no right to make her suffer, too.