The struggle between the two sides of his nature, the ascetic and the poetic, seemed sometimes like to rend soul and body apart; at other times both contending forces seemed asleep, and the current of his life flowed peacefully on. There were periods when the tender golden veins seemed to overlap and hide the flinty quartz; then he felt alive, with thrilling pulses and lips breaking into song; then he painted rapidly, painlessly, achieving quick successes, sometimes making brilliant failures. At other periods hyper-criticism of himself seemed to weight his brush and dim his vision, to take the color from the warm earth and tender sky; then the life-blood pulsed slowly through his veins, and he forgot to sing. Into the existence of this self-centred being, with its extremes of cold and warmth, few personal influences had crept; and now, for the first time in many years, he felt his life to have become entangled, for good or ill, with that of another human creature. Since his first meeting with Millicent, on that memorable night when he had found her the central figure of a picture of warmth and comfort, his frozen existence had been thawed and made happy by the subtle influence which she wielded over him. Without reasoning with himself, he had yielded to the pleasurable charm, only amazed, and perhaps a little glad, to find that there was a woman who could rob him of his well-earned sleep, and dance through his dreams at night with a wilful persistence. If he had been obliged to characterize the influence which the girl held over him, he would probably have said that she made his life vivid, and reminded him that his nature was human and not mechanical. Day by day her presence became more necessary to him; and his work was slighted, or hastily performed, in order that he might be free the sooner to reach her side. Without retrospection or introspection he had lived through the pleasant days at San Real, when Millicent’s heroic behavior had made him feel doubly grateful to her: he now owed her his life, as well as the new pleasure in that life. When the happy visit had come to an end, and he had parted with her after the return to the Ranch, it had seemed as if he could not leave her as a friend only. That one swift, silent embrace had broken the peaceful contract of friendship; and he had sealed the tumultuous untried bond of love upon her lips.