“I adore you!” I whispered. “It is fate that brought us together—I will have you!”
She laughed softly, studying me through half-closed eyes, then told me from the first I had exerted a strange influence, possibly because of the aureola of mystery surrounding me and the great, unknown continent I came from.
“But since our meeting,” she sighed, “new and wonderful thoughts riot in my mind, lulling energy, ambition, and deeply I’ve pondered over the wisdom of a life forfeited for immortality, though it is the grandest finale, and ultimately mine; but I pause, deferring momentous problems absorbed in profound analyses of a powerful, but fleeting emotion.”
“Ah!” I sighed ecstatically.
“Selfishness, Discontent,” she continued, “the premier rules of this great art are mastered in the realization of my own loveliness and the rebellion against fate, injustice of our sacred laws which sacrifices me for the welfare of humanity.”
I stared, astounded, while she, watching me closely with veiled, sidling eyes, caught the wild desire of my glance and, shaking her head, murmured dreamily: “In this wondrous world of fancy crowded with vain longings and godly phantoms which dart from rainbow film, then flash onward, your image does not blend. This sphere is the space of centuries which separates us and, though creating the new element, your appeal fails to inspire response. The joining of two such natures shatters the beautiful—we are not mates. Yours is the love that hopes, dreads, doubts and fears, and dies with possession; while I seek, yet devoutly hope never to find the one only charm of my visionary world—a powerful influence which vanquishes denial, curbing destiny with compelling, flaming radiance—a mighty glory never realized, yet swaying the universe with longings reaching above and far beyond that monster called Death. Ah, Virgillius,” she whispered tremulously, “I can love; yes, I can love; but with the knowledge happiness departs forever.”
Rapturously I caught her hand, exultant; aflame at her confession I dared press my hot lips to her soft, fair neck. She shuddered, then gently drew from my embrace.
“Thus are the dead evils of the ancients easily acquired,” she murmured gloomily, chilling my ardor and thrusting me and my passion to musty remoteness.
“And, Virgillius,” she continued, “after centuries of training the savage is still untamed. Leave me now, I am wearied, and the day approaches.”
She rose languidly, moving to the window. In the dull gray light of dawn she looked wan, strangely pathetic. In tenderest sympathy I hastened to her side, for the second half regretting my work which had robbed her forever of contentment. The ideal, always existing in her brain, had formed distinct, existable, and she worshipped every caprice of imagination.