"You adopt my own figure of speech, but you do not answer my question--which proves that I have not complete power over you. Your sense of honour will not allow you to commit yourself to anything distinctly untruthful. Say there is that in your inner life which warns you that to touch would be to wither, would you stoop to gather the flower which it may be awaits your bidding?"
A glow of ineffable delight warmed my heart. "Do you know," I asked, "that it awaits me?"
"I know nothing absolutely. I am striving to perform a duty. An ordinarily wise man, foreseeing a storm, prepares for it; and when that storm threatens one who is dearer to him than life itself, he redoubles his precautions."
"As you are doing."
"As I am doing--though I am sadly conscious that my efforts may be vain."
"You are not my enemy?"
"On the contrary. I recognise in you noble qualities, but there is at the same time a mystery within you which troubles me.
"May you not be in error there?"
"It is possible. I speak from inward prompting, based upon observation and reflection."
"Dear doctor," I said, with a sense of satisfaction at the conviction that I was successfully probing him, "if I thought that my touch would blast the flower you speak of, I would fly the spot, and carry my unhappiness with me, so that only I should be the sufferer. But no need exists. Nothing lies at my door of which I am ashamed. No man, so far as I am aware, is my enemy, and I am no man's. I have never committed an act to another's hurt. You speak of my inner life. Does not every human being live two lives, and is there not in every life something which man should keep to himself. Were we to walk unmasked, we should hate and loathe each other, and saints would be stoned to death. We are maculate, and it is given to no man to probe the mystery of existence. There are pretenders, and you and I agree upon an estimate of them. If in private intercourse we were absolutely frank in our confession of temptations, gross thoughts, and uncommitted sins, it would inspire horror. The joys of life are destroyed by seeking too far. We are here, with all our imperfections. The wisest and truest philosophy is to make the best of them and of surrounding circumstances. Therefore when I see before me a path which leads to human happiness, I should be mad to turn from it. Will you not now ask questions to which I can return explicit answers?"