"You are still!" he said in quick concern. "Listen, Athalie—the majority of men lose their grip at moments; men as irresolute as I lose it oftener. Don't waste sympathy on me; it was nothing but a whine born of a lesser impulse—born of emotions less decent than you could comprehend—"
"Maybe I am beginning to comprehend."
"You shall not! You shall remain as you are! Dear, don't you realise that I can't steady myself unless I can look up to you? You've raised yourself to where you stand; you've made your own pedestal. Look down at me from it; don't ever step down; don't ever condescend; don't ever let me think you mortal. You are not, now. Don't ever descend entirely to my level—even if we marry."
She turned, smiling too wisely, yet adorably: "What endless romance there is in that boy's heart of yours! There always was,—when you came running back to me where I stood alone by the closed door,—when you found me living as all women who work live, and made a beautiful home for me and gave me more than I wished to take, asking nothing of me in return. Oh, Clive, you were chivalrous and romantic, too, when you listened to your mother's wishes and gave me up. I understand it so much better, now. I know how it was—with your father dead and your beautiful mother, broken, desolate, confiding to your keeping all her hope and pride and future happiness,—all the traditions of the family, and its dignity and honour!
"In the light of a clearer knowledge, do you suppose I blame you now? Do you suppose I blame you for anything?—for your long and broken-hearted and bitter silence?—for the quick resurgence of your affection for me—for your love—Oh, Clive!—for your passion?
"Do you suppose I think less of you because you love me—care for me in the many and inexplicable ways that a man cares for a woman?—because you want me as a man wants the woman he loves, as his wife if it may be so, as his own, anyhow?"
She let her eyes rest on him in a new and fearless comprehension, tender, curious, sad by turns.
"It is the romance of passion in you that has been fighting to awaken the Sleeping Princess of a legend,"
she said with a slight smile; "it is the same illogical, impulsive romance that draws back just as her closed lids tremble, fearing to awaken her to the sorrows and temptations of a world which, after all, God made for us to wake in."