“No,” he said, looking in her eyes and reading his soul’s image in them; “I spoke only of the life that is; you are part of the ideal.”
There was a sudden, strange intensity of feeling upon her face. Her eyes were wide and appealing. She drew her breath in deeply like one who sings.
“Gabriel,” she said.
He glanced at her, and the color on his bronzed face deepened. His silence told her that he waited.
“I want to live; I want to be real to you, flesh and blood, a woman, not a mere spirit.”
“Joan!”
“Can I not be real to you?”
“You are the most splendid and ideal reality Heaven has ever vouchsafed to me.”
“Ah! not as I could wish,” she said. “We seem all intellect at times, you and I. Yet—if I say more I shall hurt you. Ah! God knows, I want to be a help to you.”
“Before God, you help me,” he said, drawing in a deep breath.