“But there’s so much in loving. It has so many parts. We love so many ways. We have more of us than our bodies. We have souls.”
“I’m not a disembodied spirit,” he broke in. “I don’t love you with any sub-conscious essence. I don’t believe in any isms. I love you with every fibre of my body—with every beat of my heart—with every nerve and with every thought of my brain! I love you as every other man in all the world loves every other woman in the world. I’m human; and I’m wise enough to know that God made us human with a purpose. He knows better than all the priests in the world. How do you want to be loved? I tell you I love you with all—all—body and mind and soul! Now do you understand?”
“It’s not that!” she cried. “It’s how I love you. Oh, no; I don’t mean that!”
“I don’t care how you love me!” he retorted. “I’ll take care of that! You loved me enough that once.”
“Ah, that’s just it! I forgot everything. I forgot myself and you! I wanted the touch of your hands—of your face! There was nothing else in the whole world! Oh!” she gasped, “do you think I thought of my soul then?”
“Listen!” he said, coming toward her so that she could feel his hot breaths. “You’re morbid. You’re unstrung. You have an idea that one ought to love in some subtle, supernatural, heavenly way. That’s absurd. We are made with flesh-and-blood bodies. We have veins that run and nerves that feel. You are trying to forget that you have a heart. We are not intended to be spirits—not until after we die, at any rate.”
“But we have spirits.”
“Yes,” he answered, “but it’s only through our hearts, through our mind’s hopes, through our affections, that we know it. All our soul’s nourishment comes through the senses. That’s what they were given us for.”
“But one must rule—one must be master.”
Daunt leaned toward her and caught both her hands in his one. “Ardee, dear,” he said more softly, “don’t push me off like this! Don’t resist so! I love you—you know I do. This is only some unheard-of experiment in emotion. Let it go! There’s nothing in the world worth breaking both our hearts for this way. There can’t be any real reason! Come to me, dear! Come back! Come back! Won’t you?”