Her delicate, shining little face with its wreath of dark hair, went with him everywhere, hauntingly, possessingly; and when he kissed her, as he did now every morning and every evening under Mr. Skale’s very eyes, it was like plunging his lips into a bed of wild flowers that no artificial process had ever touched.  Something in him sang when she was near.  She had, too, what he used to call as a boy “night eyes”—­changing after dusk into such shadowy depths that to look at them was to look beyond and through them.  The sight could never rest only upon their surface.  Through her eyes, then, stretched all the delight of that old immense play-ground ... where names clothed, described, and summoned living realities.

His attitude towards her was odd yet comprehensible; for though his desire was unquestionably great, it was not particularly active, probably because he knew that he held her and that no aggressive effort was necessary.  Secure in the feeling that she belonged to him, and he to her, he also found that he had little enough to say to her, never anything to ask.  She knew and understood it all beforehand; expression was uncalled for.  As well might the brimming kettle sing to the water “I contain you,” or the water reply “I fill you!”

Only this was not the simile he used.  In his own thoughts from the very beginning he had used the analogy of sound—­of the chord.  As well might one note feel called upon to cry to another in the same chord, “Hark!  I’m sounding with you!” as that Spinrobin should say to Miriam, “My heart responds and sings to yours.”

After a period of separation, however, he became charged with things he wanted to say to her, all of which vanished utterly the moment they came together.  Words instantly then became unnecessary, foolish.  He heard that faint internal singing, and his own resonant response; and they merely stayed there side by side, completely happy, everything told without speech.  This sense of blissful union enwrapped his soul.  In the language of his boyhood he had found her name; he knew her; she was his.

Yet sometimes they did talk; and their conversations, in any other setting but this amazing one provided by the wizardry of Skale’s enthusiasm, must have seemed exquisitely ludicrous.  In the room, often with the clergyman a few feet away, reading by the fire, they would sit in the window niche, gazing into one another’s eyes, perhaps even holding hands.  Then, after a long interval of silence Mr. Skale would hear Spinrobin’s thin accents: 

“You brilliant little sound!  I hear you everywhere within me, chanting a song of life!”

And Miriam’s reply, thrilled and gentle: 

“I’m but your perfect echo!  My whole life sings with yours!”

Whereupon, kissing softly, they would separate, and Mr. Skale would cover them mentally with his blessing.