She said or wrote to Gabriel Stanton: “the very thought of physical love is repugnant to me, horrible.” Yet Peter kissed her hands, her feet, attempted her lips, made her fierce wild scenes. She called him a boy, but he was a year older than herself. Gabriel brought her books and the most reverent worship, was mindful of her slightest wish. He hoped that one day she would be his wife, but scarcely dared to say it, since once she put the matter aside, almost imploringly, growing pale, seeming afraid. “Don’t talk to me of marriage, not yet. How can you? At least, wait!” She spoke of her sensitiveness. But her sensitiveness was as a mountain to a mist compared with his. She would tell him her most intimate thoughts, sit with him by dying fire or in gathering twilight, holding herself aloof. If, because he was so different from Peter Kennedy, she did sometimes try her woman’s wiles on him, she never moved him to depart from the programme or the principles she herself had laid down. Another Sunday evening,—it was either the third or fourth of his coming,—sitting in the lamplight, after dinner, in the music room, after a long enervating day of mutual confidences and ever-growing intimacy, she tried to break through his defences. They had been talking of Nietzsche, not of his philosophy, but his life. She had been envying Nietzsche’s devoted sister and her opportunities when, suddenly and disingenuously, she startled Gabriel by saying: “You are not a bit interested in what I am saying, you are thinking of something else all the time.” “Of you ... only of you!” “Of the intellectual me or the physical me? Do I please you tonight?” She nearly always wore grey, a ribbon or a flower, material or cut, diversified her wardrobe. Tonight the grey material was the softest crêpe de chine; and she wore one pink rose in a blue belt. This treatment gave value to her _blonde cendré_ hair and fair complexion, she gave the impression of a most delicate, slightly faded, yet modern miniature. “You always please me.” “Please, or excite you?” “My dear one!” He was startled, thought she did not know what it was she was saying. His blood leaped, but he had it under control. What was growing perfectly between them was love. She would soon be a free woman. “I want to know. Sometimes I wonder if I were more beautiful....” “You could not be more beautiful.” “More like other women, or perhaps if you were more like other men....” “There is no difference between me and other men,” he answered quickly. And then although he thought she did not know what she was implying, or where the conversation might carry them, he went on even more steadily: “I want to carry out your wishes. If I had the privilege of telling you all that is in my heart....” “I am admiring your self-control.” It was true she hardly knew what was impelling her to this reckless mood. “My wishes! What are my wishes? Sometimes one thing and sometimes another. Tonight for instance....”