"Thank you—I will stand," he said coldly. "But I don't know if you're aware these are oak-shrubs."
"What of it?"
"I was only thinking of the Swiss proverb about lightning, 'Vor den Eichen sollst du weichen.' We ought to make for the beeches."
"I'm not going to leave my umbrella. I am sorry you won't accept a bit of it." And she bent the tall ferns invitingly towards him.
"I don't like cowering even before the rain," he laughed. "How it brings out the beautiful earthy smell."
"One enjoys the beautiful earthy smell the better for being nearer to the earth."
He did not reply.
"Oh, you dear fool," she thought. Hadn't she had heaps of Power from childhood—over her stern old father, over her weakling mother, over her governesses, and later over the whole tribe of "the boys," and now in Europe over Marquises and Honourables—and could it all compare in intensity to this delicious, poignant sense of being caught up into a masterful personality! No, not Power but Powerlessness was life's central reality; not to turn with iron hand the great wheels of Fate, but to faint at a dear touch, to be sucked up as a moth in the flame. And for him, too, it were surely as sweet to leave this strenuous quest for dominance, or to be content with dominating her alone. Oh, she would bring him to clear vision, to live for nothing but her, even as she asked for nothing but him.
The harsh scream of a bluejay struck a discord through her reverie. She remembered that he had yet to be won.
"But didn't you tell me people can't get power without money?" she said, forgetting the hiatus in the conversation.