“Evidently nothing,” said Senhouse. “How, pray, do you undertake to apprehend body's beauty unless you discern the soul in it—on which it shapes its beauty?”
“I know,” the other replied, “that she has a lovely body, and gracious, free-moving ways; and I could have inferred her soul from them. I'll engage that you did the same thing. How are you to judge of the soul but by the hints which the body affords you?”
Senhouse made no answer, but remained musing. When he spoke it was as if he was resuming a tale half-told....
“She was in white—white as a cloud—and in a wood. Her hair reflected gold of the sun. She pinned her skirts about her waist, and put her bare foot into a pool of black water. She sank in it to the knee. She did not falter: her eyes were steady upon what she did.”
The stranger took him up where he stopped, and continued the tale. “She could never falter in her purpose. She bared herself to the thighs. She went into the pool thigh-deep. Whiter than the lilies which she went to save, she raked the weed from them—you helping her.”
“She did,” said Senhouse, his eyes searching the fire. “And when, afterwards, she did what her heart bade her, she never faltered either, though she steeped her pure soul in foulness compared to which the black water was sweet. But do you suppose that any evil handling would stain her? You fool! You are incapable of seeing a good woman. In the same breath with which I spurned myself for having a moment's fear for her, I thanked God for having let me witness her action.”
The rebuke was accepted, not because it was felt to be justified; but rather, it passed unheeded. The stranger had questions to ply.
“Knowing her, loving her—loveworthy as she was—how could you leave her?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Senhouse, “I have never left her.” But in the next breath he had to qualify his paradox.
He spoke vehemently. “I had of her all that I dared have. That has never left me. I had all that she could give me—she that was self-sufficing, not to be imparted. She did not love me, as you could understand love: I don't think she could love anybody. But I only could read her thoughts and grasp her troubles for her. She was at ease with me, let me write to her, was glad to see me when I came, but perfectly able to do without me. She was, of course, not human; she inhabited elsewhere. Her 'soul was like a star and dwelt apart.' She remembered things as they had been, yet not as affecting her to pleasure or pain; she remembered them as a tale that is told, as things witnessed. So she remembered me—and so she still does. If I was there, with her, she was glad; if I was not there, she wasn't sorry. I was nothing to her but a momentary solace—and I knew it and taught myself to be contented. I believe that she was the spirit of immortal youth fleeting over the world. I called her Hymnia. What Beatrice was to Dante, the visible incarnation of his dream of holiness, such was she to me. I picture her and Beatrice together in heaven.