She was shaken as though with a storm of sobbing. No sound escaped her. She did a thing which was as amazing as it was beautiful. Raising his hand which she had been holding, she hugged it against her breast.
IX
During the night he nodded. Once when he wakened, he found her tucking the robe more closely about him. "Go to sleep. You're tired," she whispered, patting his shoulder.
A strange woman—strangely maternal and beautiful! She never seemed to think of herself. The women whom he had known had always demanded that men should do all the giving. Even Terry had been like that. His conception, of love had been of a continual bestowing with no hope of reciprocity. To be allowed to give throughout one's life to the woman beloved had seemed to him to be the maximum of married blessedness. He knew better now. Lady Dawn had given so generously that she had established a new standard; he would never again ask so little from any woman. He began to perceive that all his approaches to love had been self-abasing. In the true sense of the word he had never been in love. Dream-intoxicated, yes! But all that he had experienced had been desire. It was a new
thought to him that a man must respect, even more than he desires, the woman whom he covets.
His feeling for Lady Dawn was one of worship. When he wakened to find her watching over him, it seemed to him that the Mother of God sat beside him. When God's Mother is symbolized in a living woman, love is reborn into the world.
The last time he awoke, dawn was breaking. The moon had grown feeble. A chill was in the air. He sat up. "What! Still awake! I don't believe you've slept a wink all night."
"I haven't. I didn't want. I've been enjoying myself."
"You look tired."
He commenced to pile cushions behind her and tried to coax her to take some rest. "If you insist," she assented. "But I'd much rather not. I'm like a child at a party; I want to last out every moment."