Where before he had made his mistake with women was allowing them to become spiritually important. His mother had been important; he had suffered from the sense of her lack of heart to him. His wife had been important; they hadn't understood life together, he made no attempt to.... They were so young.... And Claire-Anne had become spiritually important to him. So that when she was gone, it was hell. If he had treated his mother casually, depending on his uncles, it would have been all right. If he had discerned--and he had discerned, though he knew not how to act--that his wife and he would forever be inharmonious, it would not have been a scar on his youth. If he had gone for instance to Alan Donn and said, "Uncle Alan, I'm afeared there's a mistake been made. And what are we going to do about this woman o' Louth?" And Alan would have said: "I ken't well you were a damned young fool. Ah, well, gang off aboard your boatie, and I'll see to her." Alan would have ditched her and her mother mercilessly, and there would have been no scar on his youth.... And Claire-Anne, had he only taken her as he should have taken her, as a light love, easily gotten, to be taken easily, instead of tragedizing until his fingers were scarlet.... God!... Yes, where before he had made his mistakes with women was allowing them to become spiritually important. Well, he wouldn't do that with Fenzile. He knew better now. Keep the heart free. Let there be beauty and graciousness and kindliness, but keep the heart free, and ask for no heart. All tragedies were internal, all the outward deeds being only as sounds. Keep the heart free. There were so many aspects to her. She was like a bird about the house, gaily colored, of bright song. He loved to see her move here and there, with movements as of music. And she was like a child at times, as she solemnly made sherbets--very like a child she was, intense, simple. And she was like a young relative; there was emptiness in the house as she went, and when she came back it was like a bird singing. And she was so beautiful about the place, with her eyes green of the sea, her dusky velvet lips, her slim cinnamon hands, with the dramatic orange tinting on the nails. Always was some new beauty in her, a tilt of the head, a sudden gracious pose. She was like some piece of warm statuary. From any angle came beauty, shining as the sun.