Again, even to a passionate woman love is rest.  That low sigh which comes from her when, after weary waiting, at last her lips prove what she has long expected, is the sigh for rest achieved.  There is indeed nothing that she does not know.  But, for her, knowledge is not enough—­she desires possession.  The poorest man is glorified when she takes him to her heart.  She desires no longer to doubt and fret—­only to rest and to be quiet.  A woman’s love when she is true is like a heaven of Sabbaths.  A man’s, at his best, like a Monday morn when the work of day and week begins.  For love, to a true man, is above all things a call to work.  And this is more than enough of theory.

Once I was in a manufacturing city when the horns of the factories blew, and in every street there was the noise of footsteps moving to the work of the day.  It struck me as infinitely cheerful.  All these many men had the best of reasons for working.  Behind them, as they came out into the chill morning air, they shut-to the doors upon wife and children.  Why should they not work?  Why should they desire to be idle?  Had I, methought, such reasons and pledges for work, I should never be idle, and therefore never unhappy.  For me, I choose a Monday morning of work with the whistles blowing, and men shutting their doors behind them.  For that is what I mean by love.

All this came back to me as I walked alone by the lake while the day was breaking behind the mountains.

As though she had heard the trumpet of my heart calling her, she came.  I did not see her till she was near me on the gravel path which leads to the chalet by the lake.  There was a book of devotion in her hand.  It was marked with a cross.  I had forgotten my prayers that morning till I saw this.

Yet I hardly felt rebuked, for it was morning and the day was before me.  With so much that was new, the old could well wait a little.  For which I had bitterly to repent.

She looked beyond conception lovely as she came towards me.  Taller than I had thought, for I had not seen her—­you must remember—­since.  It seemed to me that in the night she had been recreated, and came forth fresh as Eve from the Eden sleep.  Her eyelashes were so long that they swept her cheeks; and her eyes, that I had thought to be violet, had now the sparkle in them which you may see in the depths of the southern sea just where the sapphire changes into amethyst.

Did we say good-morning?  I forget, and it matters little.  We were walking together.  How light the air was!—­cool and rapturous like snow-chilled wine that is drunk beneath the rose at thirsty Teheran.  The ground on which we trod, too, how strangely elastic!  The pine-trees give out how good a smell!  Is my heart beating at all, or only so fine and quick that I cannot count its pulsings?

What is she saying—­this lady of mine?  I am not speaking aloud—­only thinking.  Cannot I think?

She told me, I believe, why she had come out.  I have forgotten why.  It was her custom thus to walk in the prime.  She had still the mantilla over her head, which, as soon as the sun looked over the eastern crest of the mountains, she let drop on her shoulders and so walked bareheaded, with her head carried a trifle to the side and thrown back, so that her little rounded chin was in the air.