"Yes, I know that," she said coldly.
Loring kept his eyes on her. She was eating the little fox flavoured grapes as she walked beside him—very deliberately, one at a time.
"What I find so peculiarly interesting about it," continued Loring, his voice shaken, his heart racing, "is that the difference in their ages was even more than the difference in ours."
Sophy threw aside the bunch of grapes with an impetuous movement. She turned, looking him full in the face. She was very pale now and her eyes shone black. She had not foreseen any such sudden climax as all this.
"Don't ... don't spoil it...." she said vehemently, "don't spoil our pleasant friendship.... I beg of you not to do it."
They stood facing each other, shut alone into the great gold temple of the woods. Loring's beautiful bold eyes were black also. He, too, was white. The pent up passion of his worshipping love for her, that had all the unreasoning fire of a convert's fanaticism, burnt his lips with words. He had not meant to speak. Five minutes ago nothing had been further from his thoughts than the outburst, which now shook him with its violent suddenness.
"You can't stem the high tide with a straw...." he said low and breathless. "Do what you will with me.... I love you.... I more than love you.... I worship you.... I adore you.... Break me if you like.... Snap my life in two.... Throw away the broken bits.... But I worship you.... I worship you!"
He dropped suddenly to his knee on the brown leaves; caught the hem of her clay-stained skirt to his lips. He was past all self-consciousness. He had no dread of seeming ridiculous. Indeed it did not occur to him that he could be ridiculous. Young love has no sense of humour. His white, intense face looked up at her amazingly beautiful—the face of a wood-god kindled with awed passion for some skyey deity. And this sheer beauty of his kept Sophy also from seeing anything absurd in his kneeling there to kiss the soiled hem of her skirt. Supreme beauty, like supreme love, is never ridiculous. The gods wept over Icarus tumbling from his sire's chariot in mid-heaven. They would have tittered had it been lame Vulcan sprawling after his whirling hammer through the gulfs of ether. In the few seconds that Sophy stood transfixed, gazing down into that exalted young face, she understood how the legend of the moon's white stoop to Endymion had been invented. Not imagination so much as material beauty had been the source of the Greek myths. The artist and the poet in her ranged themselves on Loring's side. Her first impulse of anger was replaced by a sad tenderness. She forgot the Morris Loring of everyday in this Endymion of a moment. She forgot even that she had called him like Endymion "in the sulks" only a short while ago. This youth, with the white flame of worship quivering up from his heart's altar and lighting the antique mask of his ardent face—with his awed, yet eager eyes burning upon hers—this was a different thing—one quite new to her. She was startled by the throe of pitiful regret that seized her. If only she had been different herself ... a young virgin ready to receive this outpouring of virginal love.... What miracles would have enfolded them ... what wonders of dawn-time ecstasy. She had been mistaken. A face so beautiful could be only the symbol of a lovely soul. And this soul was gazing at her from the timid passion of the dark eyes, no longer bold, but infinitely, touchingly imploring. In continuous, swift flashes, like the luminous particles from radium, these thoughts showered from her mind, as she stood gazing down at him.
"I've heard of it.... I never believed.... Now I believe..." he was stammering. "My soul's in your body.... Your beautiful body is more than any soul to me.... I pray to you.... My soul in you prays to you...." He caught up a bit of leafy clay that had adhered to her foot, and pressed that also to his lips. "See...." he stammered on, "the dirt from your shoe.... That's how I love you...."
And even this act did not make him seem ridiculous. But Sophy caught his wrist, holding back his hand from his lips that trembled into a white, half-smile.