His health was a perfect thing; of that kind that men dream of, and boys know, but do not stop to feel.  He could smell the freshness of pure water in his bath or when he drank; there was delight in the taste of common foods; at night in his high room, higher still than the studio of Vina Nettleton, there were moments when the land-wind seemed to bring delicacies from the spring meadows of Jersey; or blowing from the sea, he sensed the great sterile open.  He was tireless, and could discern the finest prints and weaves at bad angles of light.

He moved often along the water-fronts and through abandoned districts; a curious sense of unreality often came over him in these night rambles, as if he were tranced among the perversions of astral light.  He gave a great deal, but saw that if he gave his life nightly, even that would not avail.  His money was easily passed into another hand; that would not do—­little vessels of oil overturned upon an Atlantic of storm.  These were but tentative givings; they denied him nothing.  Bedient saw that he must give more than this, and waited for the way....  The most poignant and heart-wringing experience for him in New York was suddenly to find himself in the midst of the harried human herd, when it was trying to play.  One can best read a city’s tragedy at its pleasure-places.

...Beth Truba was his great ignition.  His love for her overflowed upon all things....  The hour or more in her studio became the feature of his day.  Bedient was not shown the work on the portrait.  Beth didn’t altogether like the way it progressed.  Sometimes, she talked as she worked (sitting low beneath the skylight, so that every change of light was in her hair, while the spring matured outside).  Deep realities were often uttered thus, sentences which bore the signet of her strong understanding, for they passed through the stimulated faculties of the artist, engrossed in her particular expression.  Thus the same intelligence which colored her work, distinguished her sayings....  Bedient daily astonished her.  Again and again, she perceived that he had come to New York, full of power from his silences apart.  She wanted him to preserve his freshness of vision.  His quiet expressions thrilled her.

“The women I know, married or unmarried, are nearly all unhappy,” she said, one day.  “My younger friends, even among girls, are afraid.  They see that men are blinded by things they can taste and see and touch—­speed, noise and show.  The married women are restless and terrified by spiritual loneliness.  The younger women see it and are afraid.”

“’Had I but two loaves of bread, I should sell one to buy white hyacinths,’” Bedient quoted; “I like to think of that line of Mahomet’s....  Women are ready for white hyacinths—­the bread of life....  But this spiritual loneliness is a wonderful sign.  The spirit floods in where it can—­where it is sought after—­and the children of women who are hungry for spiritual things, are children of dreams.  They must be.  They may not be happy, but they will feel a stronger yearning to go out alone and find ‘the white presences among the hills.’”