"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly conventional air.
Verisschenzko laughed.
"You are delicious when you say things like that—loyal, and English, and proud. But listen, child—it is waste of time to have any dissimulation with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
Amaryllis felt a number of things.
"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You represent an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You must fulfil this rôle. I represent a leader of certain thought in my country. My soul is given to this—I must only indulge in that over which I am master. Indulgences are our recompenses, our rights, when we have obtained dominion and they have become our slaves; to be enjoyed only when, and for so long as, our wills permit. When you say a thing is 'plus fort que vous'—then you had better throw up the sponge—you have lost the fight, and your indulgence will scourge you with a scorpion whip."
"You say this, and yet you are so far from being an ascetic!"
"As far as possible, I hope! They are self-acknowledged failures; they dare not permit themselves the smallest indulgence, they are weaklings afraid to enter the arena at all. To me they are at a stage further back than the sensualists—what are they accomplishing? They have withered nature, they are things of nought! A man or woman should realise what plane he or she is living on, and try to live to the highest of the best of the physical, mental and moral life on that plane, but not try to alter all its workings, and live as though in a different sphere altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which, should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority."