He arose, his lips smiling, his eyes burning with tributes to her—moved about the table, placed his hands upon her shoulders and bent his lips to hers.
"Won't you come with me?" he whispered.... "We will go to the Temple together. We will bring forth a sign to the people."
... Her fingers closed gently upon his wrists, lifting his hands outward from her shoulders and letting them fall. Then she arose and looked at him tenderly.
"You are dear—I think you could not be so dear if you were not bewildered. These meetings are wonderful, but don't you see—that you are dreaming? Don't you see that a man must travel alone on his quest? It's like the old stories—he must slay the dragon that stands between. A man does not take a woman to the Inner Temple. A man who passes the threshold of the Inner Temple cannot have a woman in his eyes or heart. They would say, 'Why, this is a mere mortal. He cannot enter here.' Do you not see, do you not see?"
"Anna Erivan."
She smiled and put down his hands that lifted to her.
"You are the quest," he said intensely. "It was our meeting. The Gobi—why, it was but a means of bringing me to you. Last night, as I stood in the court, I knew that. Today, when in a sentence you made all the meanings of my life clear, taking up my story and completing it briefly—today, just now, I saw that I could never look beyond you—"
"Don't say that. I should not have let you say that. We are asked to renounce nothing that lasts. You must not fail through me. This is not a good beginning for our story. You know this. You are only bewildered."
Romney began to understand her strength. She had risen above him. Her vision was clearer. In getting down from the camel he had become altogether human. The fury of his ardour was for the woman. Because he was moved with desire, he was not at his best. He took her in his arms, the tempest of emotions blinding him....
Women with a touch of the savage left in them, may be captured with strength, but he had given her a dream of greater days than these.