The time came when he heard other women—­blessed women—­speak of the Adelaide type of sister as the crowning abomination; he watched their eyes harden and glitter as only a mother-bird’s can, in the circling shadow of a hawk; he lived to read in the havoc of men’s faces that the ways of such women were ways of death; he believed all this—­yet preserved something exquisite.  Ten years afterward, winds from the South brought him the spirit of fragrance from her shoulders and hair.  From his own ideals, he had focussed upon that Emptiness, the beauty and dimension of a Helen.

Other experiences, up to the real romance—­and these were surprisingly few—­were episodes, brief quickenings of the old flame...When the first American soldiers were being lightered ashore in Manila harbor, in fact, shortly after the cannonading in the harbor, a certain woman came over from the States and took a house in Manila.  It was known as the Block-House.  Some months afterward, and just before the long trip of the Train in which Cairns featured, Bedient met this woman on the Escolta.  It was at dusk, and she was crossing the narrow pavement from the post-office entrance to her carriage-door.  Their eyes met frankly.  She was wise, under thirty, very slender, perfectly dressed; pretty, of course, but more than that; her little perfections were carried far beyond the appreciation of any but women physically faultless as herself.

Bedient was impressed with something passionate and courageous, possibly dangerous.  He could not have told the source of this impression.  It was not in the contour, in the white softness of skin, in the full brown eyes, fair brow, nor in the reddened arch of her lips.  It was something from the whole, denoted possibly in the quick dilation of her delicate nostrils or in the startling discovery of such a woman in Manila....  She lowered her eyes, started for her carriage—­then turned again to the tall figure of Bedient in fresh white clothing.  Or it may have been that her deep nature found delight in the excellent boyishness of the tanned face.

“Wouldn’t you like to drive with me on the Luneta?” she asked pleasantly, and there was a low tone in her voice which made her instantly different.

“Why, yes, I should like to.”

Her carriage was a victoriette, small to match the ponies—­black stallions, noteworthy for style and spirit even in Manila, where one’s equipage is the measure of fortune....  Bedient found that he could be silent without causing an abatement of her pleasure.  And, indeed, she seemed a little embarrassed, too, although he did not accept this.  Vaguely he was ruffled by the thought that he had merely been chosen as the principal of a nightly adventure....  This was untrue.