He had been startled by the acuteness of her perception. Too probably he had carried his reserve to the selfish pitch, and in over-mastering, with silence, his own moods, afflicted her who had become now, by love, inseparable from his spiritual as well as his outward life. But there is something in beauty--just as there is something in youth--which one fears to disturb, lest a change should alter, or mar, in the faintest degree, the sufficient loveliness, the unconscious charm. Is it not for this cause that many dependent natures find classic perfection cold, superb scenery unsympathetic, and the spectacle of careless happiness embittering? Others, of imaginative temperament, prefer that their idols should remain impassive, and, granted the inspiration arising from a fair appearance, ask no more, but find their delight in bestowing, from the riches of their own gratitude, adorable attributes and endless worship. Orange, as many other men of idealising tendencies, took his human solace for the discouragements, fatigues, and ordeals of life in the mere existence of the woman he loved. He was at the moment of humility which is the first and last in all really great passions. He asked for nothing; it was all too glorious even to have the privilege of offering gifts, of feeling the readiness to die ten deaths for her sake, of finding all the recompenses of eternity in the soft depths of her bright eyes. But as he was too much in earnest to analyse these sentiments, he could neither gauge his own reticence nor justify it to Brigit herself. Nor could she, with all her tenderness and womanly instincts, help him in that matter--their one possibility of estrangement. She lacked the knowledge which renders verbal confidences unnecessary; she was too loving and too human to be happy as an inspiration and an inspiration only; she also had a great desire to give, to aid, to prove her devotion, to be the friend and the fellow-pilgrim. CHAPTER XII