Helen had thrown herself against a tree; she was looking up at him, her eyes like glowing coals, feline, compelling. Her face was white, her lips parted by her quick breathing. She was irresistible, yet as Kit’s will swayed to her, he blindly struggled against her.
There was in him no sense of attraction nor of repulsion; all the ages which had preceded him fought on Helen’s side, drew the youth to the woman. Yet in Kit’s veins some beautiful inheritance from sweet, patient, chastened women, as well as the ideal which he had formed, and to which he could not then consciously revert, stood him in good stead. He bent toward Helen and she lifted her arms to him. Then he stepped backward, and muttered hoarsely:
“Helen, help me! You are mad!”
“I’ll help you, Kit! Oh, Kit, it’s for your dear sake, as well as for my own that I want you! I swear this is true. But how I do want you, want you, want you, want you!”
She went over to him and knelt, laying her glorious head at his feet.
“Say you’ll marry me, Kit. You’ll be happier than you can dream. It is for your sake, too. See, I’m at your feet, Kit; take me! Helen is at your feet! And she will make you endlessly happy, dearest!”
Kit’s will, his judgment, his hold on his own identity seemed to crumble and fall into nothingness. He stood for an instant with closed eyes, suffering, he did not know what. He knew that he would raise Helen in his arms in spite of himself. He knew that he must not raise her, for, if he touched her, that identity for which he groped would be forever lost. She waited at his feet, knowing that in a moment he would lift her from her self-abasement and then, in his arms, she would kiss him, and that Kit would marry her. It was but an instant of time, but it measured an eternity.
A piping voice came singing behind the trees, a child’s voice, slight and not as lovely as a guardian angel’s, but it broke the spell as effectually as St. Michael the archangel’s could have done:
“Astre propice au marin,
Conduis ma barque au rivage;