She to see him idler! ... In rebuke of such a thought he released his mind to wild and undisciplined flights that showed himself the champion of tremendous feats—of arms, of heroism, of physical prowess—performing them beneath the benison of her eyes, returning from them to receive her smiles....

For a considerable space he stood lost among these clouds. They had drifted upon him suddenly. He found them delectable. Then he began to find them strange and puzzling—scenes that were meaningless, sensations that could not be determined. It is to be remembered of him that, though he was now advanced to the period when the sap is up in youth and quickening in his veins, he did not pursue the life nor was he of the nature that encourages the amorous designs. A sluggish habit of mind and body is the soil to nurture these: he was alert and braced, eager and sound from foot to brain—a thing all fibre and fearless, whose only quest was what should give him the challenge of movement, of light, and ring back tough and true when he taxed it. No room was here, then, for the disturbances that sex throws up; and yet these very qualities that such disturbance could not undermine conspired to arouse him very mightily when he should turn him to enquire what this disturbance was, and discovering, should launch himself upon it.

He was near to the brink of that launching now. Dora with her rare beauty always had exercised upon him a feeling different from any he commonly knew; he never yet had troubled to suppose that it was caused by any emotion outside his normal life. She had astonished him by her grace of form and feature on that day when he had discovered her to be Snow-White-and-Rose-Red of the fairy book. Thereafter she had remained to him a delicately beautiful object—set apart from the ordinary fashion of persons he knew; not to be treated quite as he treated them; a very dainty thing, making him aware of the contrast that his own sturdy figure, strong limbs, brown face, and hard young hands presented. As a boy he had always been caused a manner of awe in her presence; as he grew older the awe went back to the sheer admiration that she had caused in him at their first meeting. Out of her company, in the long months that frequently separated her visits, he rarely thought of her; though sometimes—and he had no reason for it—he would find her pretty figure in his mind or in his dreams. When he reëncountered her, the admiration sprang afresh; he liked to watch her face, to stand unnoticed and expect, then see, her cold smile part her lips, or those strange shades of colour deepen and glow upon her cheeks; he liked in little unobserved ways to protect her as he had protected her that day in the muddy lane; it caused him a strange rapture to have her thank him for any service.

III

These were his relations to her through the years. He never had thought to analyse them nor question why he so regarded her—never till now. Now for the first time as he stood on Plowman's Ridge he mused among the misty tangle of the sensations that old friend wind had brought, lost and astray among the visions presented to his mind by estimate of how Dora would consider his idle plight—now for the first time he suddenly questioned himself what she was to him.

He was all unused to the sensations in which, by an effort recalling himself from his musings, he found himself suffused. They were all—that slight trembling and that slight quickening of his breath that possessed him—foreign to his nature, and he made a sharp movement as though they were tangible and visible things that he would shake from about him. Useless!—they had him wrapped.... Quicker his trembling, and his breath quicker. What was she to him? Up sprang the answer, answering with a triple voice that demanded his acknowledgment. Up sprang the answer, causing him a physical thrill as though indeed there burst at last from within him some essence that had been too long held and now was loosed like fire through his veins. With a triple voice, clamouring he should recognise it! What was she to him? Her face and figure stood in all their beauty before his mental eye—that was one voice and he trembled anew to hear it. What was she to him? Memory of a light speech of Rollo on the previous day came flaming to his mind: "And mother, I believe, has a plot with Mrs. Espart that I shall marry Dora then and settle down"—that was a second voice and stung him so that he knit his brow. What was she to him? Of them all—of all who would laugh and have him in scorn when he was taskless idler—bitterest, most intolerably goading, that she should hold him so—that was the third voice and drew from him a sharp intake of the breath as of one that has touched hot iron.

What was she to him? In triple voice he had the answer, demanding his acknowledgment, clamouring for his recognition. By a single word he signed the bond. None was by to listen, and yet he flushed; there was none to overhear, and yet he spoke scarcely above a whisper. He just breathed her name—"Dora!"

An intense stillness came about him. He stood enraptured, all his senses thrilled. Out of the stillness, echo of his whisper, seemed to come her name of Dora! Dora! Dora! floating about him as petals from the bloomy rose. He raised his face to their caress and was caught up in sudden ecstasy—believed he was with her, touching her; and saw and felt her stoop towards him, bringing her perfume to him as the may-tree stoops and sheds its fragrance when first at dawn the morning breathes in spring.

IV

So for a space he stood etherealised—awed and atremble; youth brought suddenly through the gates and into the courts of love where the strong air at every tremulous breath runs like wine to the brain, to the heart like some quick essence. For a space he stood so; then was aware that old friend wind was up again and drumming Ha! Ha! Ha! upon his ears as one that mocks.