And he pondered the mystery of his own behavior. A sense of duty and a sense of honor had always guided his acts hitherto. This woman acted upon him like the drug that doctors use for controlling violent patients and the criminal insane; it leaves the senses all alive but annuls the power of motion.
Here he was, convinced to the very depths of his soul that it was abominable to embrace the betrothed of another, yet he did not take his arms from about her, he did not put her away from him. Instead, he held her fast even when she made to go. And yet he blamed her.
This much at least he accomplished in the long silence: he ceased to blame Persis and accused himself, tried himself before the tribunal of his own soul, and denounced himself as guilty of treason to himself and her and the laws of the world. But he did not put her from him.
And now, having condemned himself, he followed the usual program and forgave himself. He bent down and kissed her forehead and her hair, and tightened his arms about her. She did not answer his kiss. Once more he felt, as in the sunlight by the brook, that he held only the shell of her, while her soul—that other man's soul of her—was gone voyaging.
But now it was in the cold of night, in the dark chill of a room long closed up like a grave and her body was the only warmth in the room, or in the world for him. It seemed to glow like an ember breathing rosily in ashes.
And now gradually desire grew imperious, the angry, sullen desire of Tristan seeing his Isolde given to another man to wife. He burned with resentment at the ill-treatment accorded him by the fates, who saved his love and her love for this mockery, this money-infected, money-paralyzed romance. His wrath rose in revolt against a world where such a sarcasm was possible. The laws of the world became suspect with the mercy of the world. The pangs of disprized love were so bitter that he began to claim revenge, revenge especially on her.
He clenched his arms about her with a new and different ardor—no longer the sacred fervor of a lover who protects his affianced from himself, but the outlaw that raids and desecrates.
She understood and was afraid and fought against him, but her mutinous love fought for him. And nature, and the moonlight, and the scented breeze purring at the window fought for him. All her beauty clamored to surrender. She was already lost when some last impulse of horror cried out against the irreparable profanation. Even as her arms went round him she murmured: