IX
Before Loring went away, an hour later, he put a fresh log on the fire, smiling up at her shyly, as he knelt to do so.
"I'll mend the altar fire in your temple before I go, Selene," he had murmured.
He felt strangely subdued and awed after the wonder of that kiss. The enchantment that was over them held awe for them both. There was in it something mystic—an influence blowing, as it were, from home-lands of the soul dimly remembered. Sophy felt this consciously—Loring unconsciously. But he felt things through her, since that kiss. There had been between them during that long-blossoming kiss a transfusion of spirit. She was through and through him like music—like sunlight through the fibrils of a plant, from flower to root. And this subtle fusion made him know just what to say and do to satisfy her. It was this new-lent instinct that had made him so still after the wild magic of that kiss had set his blood and spirit singing. When she had whispered at last: "Go now ... dear...." he had risen without a protest. It was then he had knelt to put the fresh log on her fire. Afterwards he had bent and touched his lips to her hands as they lay together in her lap—then to the shining, fire-warmed tress that flowed over her shoulder. He had gone out, closing the door noiselessly as though she were in some mysterious trance, and he feared to waken her.
As in a trance himself, he had fetched Proud Aleck from the old stable. The horse had nickered when he heard him coming. In the fragrant darkness of the stable, Loring had thrown an arm over the bay's neck. "You brought me to her this night...." he whispered. He drew the horse's muzzle towards him, and pressed his lips to the broad front. He continued for some moments leaning against the great horse that quivered with impatience to be gone. He felt faint and languid. It was as if he had really been only mortal and she a goddess. His mortality seemed to fail under the bliss of this contact with immortality. It was as though sudden godhead had been bestowed on him and his flesh were consuming under it into a finer essence.
There was no pride as yet in his wonder. That beautiful humility of real love still held him. He was not even exultant that his "will" had won at last. He did not feel as though he had conquered but as though some great Winged Victory had caught him up and set him on this height, with its veil of golden mist. It was not the kingdoms of the earth that were offered him—but the kingdoms of the air ... starry places ... Diana's cloud-land ... hanging-gardens of the gods....
Loring was rapt into the ecstatic state of "conversion."... He was experiencing all the giddily rapturous throes and exquisite frenzies of what is known as "revelation"—only its cause was not divine but human love. He moved in a vision of clear light. Like Sophy, he was a stranger to himself, yet he felt that this new self was not really the stranger, but that old self which lay dark and shrivelled at the roots of being, like the husk of a seed, from which has sprung the triumphing blossom.... He rode home as on a wind of dreams. The splendid moon, now soaring in mid-heaven, seemed set there as a symbol for him, and him alone. "Selene.... Selene.... Selene...." went the hoofs of the great, red horse, like the strokes of a Rhapsodist, beating time to the music in his heart....
And Sophy, too, was all be-glamoured. She had heard the fairy-harp, she had listened to music blown from the land of Heart's Desire. Ior, the fairy chief, had kissed her eyes and lips. She was amazed, bemused—deep down in her heart there was a great fear. Yet there was joy also. Not the sane joy of everyday ... but a fragile, iridescent trembling as of a dewy gossamer spun between the lintels of the door of Dreams. She was afraid to move lest she should destroy this delicate, fine-spun joy. Beyond its veil glimmered the wings of golden dreams. She knew well how Diana must have felt after she had kissed the sleeping shepherd.
She was like one in some old-time fable, who gives a wanderer a cup of water, and, lo! after drinking, the wanderer shakes back his cloak of hodden-grey, and it is Eros himself glowing against the twilight—she had entertained, unawares, the mightiest angel of them all. The soft, electric plumes of Love had folded down upon her. She was smothered in his sparkling wings, yet this lovely death only released her to new life. It was only her self of later years that was dying softly. She felt herself gleaming, slipping from the hard shell of years—a pearl released, a pearl bathed in seas of wonder.