"But don't you think the secret tragedy of many a seemingly commonplace and prosaic person is the lack of someone to be earnestly and devotedly adored? Don't you think many and many a heart suffers from a craving to exercise strong powers of loving forever ungratified? I'm speaking of a spiritual demand—not of the universal desire to find a mate that is just part of Nature's artful little scheme for ensuring the due arrival of the next generation. Do you think that demand of the spirit proves a man merely a willing follower of Dante?"
"Oh, no no!—I suppose not. But, despite your specious arguments, I still maintain that you, individually, are one to rate love higher than any object. Obstinate, am I not?"
"Absolutely wicked, you dearest. I love you, my Evarne—you yourself—in every possible way under the sun, including the ordinary human love of any man, artist or not, for the woman he seeks for his wife. There is perhaps a tiny atom of truth in one of the charges you have hurled at me, but——"
"I knew it, my dear commonplace lover. Confess, and I'll see if I can forgive you."
"I think, perhaps—dearest, I don't like even to speak of it—but perhaps even your—I mean, if the world lost you, my own beloved——"
"If I died?"
He flinched even at the words that expressed the possibility, but went on—
"That it would cause a more—how can I express my meaning? Well, in one way, possibly, even that would cause a less ever-present gap in my mental life than would the destruction of my love for you.... It's no use hitting me," he laughed; "I can't help it, sweetest!" Then he clasped her closely with sudden eager passion. "But do not think that your dreamer is at all content to worship only in spirit, Evarne."
Then, impulsively, he poured forth a flood of words, ardent, impassioned, throbbing with that fiery sex-love that dominates the entire world—selfish, unheeding, remorseless—words of that terrible overwhelming passion that will not be long denied.
"That's how I want to be loved," she whispered, but flung herself away from his grasp just in order to be drawn close once more.