“You know it.”
“Then pick up the standard once more! Carry on! Respond to that inner voice that presently will cry out to you. Ambition is inspired by emotion rather than intellect. If you love me, don’t fling down the torch!”
“But I need you,” he protested. “You are the fount, the source of all my power. You are my torch. Without you, the world is plunged in darkness. I can see to do nothing.”
“There is an inextinguishable beam of friendship. More . . . When one achieves an understanding such as ours, one enters into a spiritual romance.”
He bowed his head against her breast. Gently, she encircled his body with her arms. Twilight quivered in the still room.
Presently, he looked up.
“And what of you, my dear? Yours is the harder part . . . Will you suffer very much, Azalea?”
She closed her eyes to hide from him her agony. “Emotions, even the most happy ones, are shot with pain,” she said.
“Yes, I’m learning that, myself, God pity me! But I don’t want you to suffer through my love. Oh, Azalea . . . woman . . . you have been my white angel, my guiding star, that I took for granted as naturally as that one, in the sky! You have been for me the Truth and the Light, the balm for which I cried in all my agony and strife. You have accepted me as I am, nor asked a profession of my love in any way that was not me. And I leave you, never having served you. What is there of me that can hold a place in your life?”
She thought a moment, then,