“Speed thy way through the luminous spheres; behold, admire, hasten!  Flying thus thou canst pause or advance without weariness.  Like other men, thou wouldst fain be plunged forever in these spheres of light and perfume where now thou art, free of thy swooning body, and where thy thought alone has utterance.  Fly! enjoy for a fleeting moment the wings thou shalt surely win when Love has grown so perfect in thee that thou hast no senses left; when thy whole being is all mind, all love.  The higher thy flight the less canst thou see the abysses.  There are none in heaven.  Look at the friend who speaks to thee; she who holds thee above this earth in which are all abysses.  Look, behold, contemplate me yet a moment longer, for never again wilt thou see me, save imperfectly as the pale twilight of this world may show me to thee.”

Seraphita stood erect, her head with floating hair inclining gently forward, in that aerial attitude which great painters give to messengers from heaven; the folds of her raiment fell with the same unspeakable grace which holds an artist—­the man who translates all things into sentiment—­before the exquisite well-known lines of Polyhymnia’s veil.  Then she stretched forth her hand.  Wilfrid rose.  When he looked at Seraphita she was lying on the bear’s-skin, her head resting on her hand, her face calm, her eyes brilliant.  Wilfrid gazed at her silently; but his face betrayed a deferential fear in its almost timid expression.

“Yes, dear,” he said at last, as though he were answering some question; “we are separated by worlds.  I resign myself; I can only adore you.  But what will become of me, poor and alone!”

“Wilfrid, you have Minna.”

He shook his head.

“Do not be so disdainful; woman understands all things through love; what she does not understand she feels; what she does not feel she sees; when she neither sees, nor feels, nor understands, this angel of earth divines to protect you, and hides her protection beneath the grace of love.”

“Seraphita, am I worthy to belong to a woman?”

“Ah, now,” she said, smiling, “you are suddenly very modest; is it a snare?  A woman is always so touched to see her weakness glorified.  Well, come and take tea with me the day after to-morrow evening; good Monsieur Becker will be here, and Minna, the purest and most artless creature I have known on earth.  Leave me now, my friend; I need to make long prayers and expiate my sins.”

“You, can you commit sin?”

“Poor friend! if we abuse our power, is not that the sin of pride?  I have been very proud to-day.  Now leave me, till to-morrow.”

“Till to-morrow,” said Wilfrid faintly, casting a long glance at the being of whom he desired to carry with him an ineffaceable memory.

Though he wished to go far away, he was held, as it were, outside the house for some moments, watching the light which shone from all the windows of the Swedish dwelling.