"And you do not want me," she began, softly, less to him than to herself. "I don't fit in. You cannot take me up and put me aside, at your will. You would be mine."
"Good!"
"It should have been different. We should never have met. They should have made you a saint, or a priest, or a pastor for the bleeding world. You are a trifle late; half a century ago, you could have given your soul to God, quite easily, and not bothered about one woman."
"Yes, I agree, but that was settled by the way the world has ground," the young man sighed. "Why should it bother you, my fooling with the forlorn and wretched—the others? Any more than I mind your dealings with men?"
They turned about and crossed the dozen paces to the Redentore wall where lay a blade of dark shade.
"You could flirt with the multitude? Yes, I should object," she looked at him slowly, "I couldn't understand it."
He threw his head back as if to look beyond Venice.
"The maimed in body and spirit," he muttered.
"They call you; I call you; you——"
"I was starved," he pleaded, "I love flesh and glory, too."