And then came over him—­over all his senses—­something flower-like in scent, yet having to do with no particular flower.  It dilated his nostrils, but more than that, all his senses awoke to the strange charm of it....  The distance between them was gone that instant.  Though it may have endured for ages and ages, it was gone.  He had overtaken her....  A haunting influence; and yet of magic authority!  Was it the perfume of the lotos and the bees?  It was more than that.  It was the sublimate of all his bewitchings—­chaste mountains, dawns, the morning glow upon great heights, the flock of flying swans red with daybreak; more still, all the petals of the Adelaide passion restored in one drop of fragrance, and lifted, a different fragrance, the essence of a miracle!  This was the perfume that came from her life, from her arms and throat and red mouth....

It was new out of the years.  All his strangely guarded strength arose suddenly animate.  A forgotten self had come back to him, all fresh and princely out of long enchantment....  And there she stood with face averted awaiting this Return!...  This was the mysterious prince who had wrought in darkness so long, the source of his dreams of woman’s greatness, the energy that had driven and held him true to his ideals, the structure into which his spiritual life had been builded (was this the world’s mighty illusion possessing him?), and now the prince had come, asking for his own....  And she was there, stretching out her arms.

Mighty forces awoke from sleep.  They were not of his mind, but deep resolutions of all his life, forces of her own inspiring which she must gladly, gloriously obey.  Was it not her love token, this electric power, as truly as his mind’s ardor and his spiritual reverence?...  The miracle of her life’s fragrance held him....  Even desire was beautiful in a love like this.  All nature trembles for the issue, when love such as his perceives the ripe red fruit of a woman’s lips....  But better far not to know it at all, than to know the half.

* * * * *

And Beth was thinking of the cool depths in his eyes a moment before, and of his words, “asking nothing."...  “Why asks he nothing of me?...  Because I am old and cold."...  Some terrific magnetism filled her suddenly, as if she had drawn vitality from great spaces of sunlight, and some flaming thing from the huge hot strength of Clarendon....  And now the goading devil whispered: 

“With another he would not ask, he would take!  Only you—­you do not attract great passions.  The source of such attraction is gone from you.  Mental interests and spiritual ideals are your sphere!...  Second-rate women whistle and the giants come!  They know the lovers in men. You know the sedate mental gardeners and the tepid priests.  How you worship that still, cool gazing in the eyes of men!  Books and pictures are quite enough—­for your adventures in passion.  In them, you meet