“Yet you are immortal; time and space seem nothing; barriers and distance—all those things that shackle men—have no meaning for you. All thy being formed on the structure of a wish and every earthly law subservient to your fancy, how is it you can do so much and yet so little, and be at once so dominant and yet so feeble?”
“I told you, dear friend, before, that with new capacities new laws arise. I near forget how far I once could see—what was the edge of that shallow world you live in—where exactly the confines of your powers and liberty are set. But this I know for certain, that, while with us the possible widens out into splendid vagueness, the impossible still exists.”
“And do you really mean, then, that fate is still the stronger among you?—this fair girl, here, sweet shadow! Oh! with one of those terrible and shining arms crossed there on thy bosom, couldst thou not have guided into happy void that fatal spear that killed? Surely, surely, it were so easy!”
The priestess dropped her fair head, and over her dim-white shoulders, and her pleasant-scented, hazy wolf-skins, her ruddy hair, all agleam in that strange refulgence, shone like a cascade of sleeping fire. Then she looked up and replied, in low tones:
“The swimmer swims and the river runs, the wished-for point may be reached or it may not, the river is the stronger.”
Somehow, I felt that my shadowy guest was less pleased than before, so I thought a moment and then said: “Where is she now?” and glanced at Isobel.
“The novice,” smiled Blodwen, “is asleep.”
“Oh, wake her!” I cried, “for one moment, for half a breath, for one moiety of a pulse, and I will never ask thee other questions.”
“Insatiable! incredulous! how far will thy reckless love and wonder go? Must I lay out before thy common eyes all the things of the unknown for you to sample as you did your bags of fig and olive?”
“I loved her before, and I love her still, even as I loved and still love thee. Does she know this?”