I returned to my vigil at the gate and to thoughts of Anne—­to romantic thoughts of worship and service; of becoming worthy of her regard; of immense faithfulness to her image when confronted with the most provocative temptations; to thoughts of self-sacrifice and bravado, of humility and boasting; of some transcending glorification of myself that should make me worthy of her love.

I was arrested in the midst of my ecstatic sentimentalism by the sight of the Hall, the lights of which were distantly visible through the trees.  The path by the wood was not the direct line from the Hall to the Farm; the sanctities of the Park were not violated by any public right of way.  The sight of the place pulled me up, because I was suddenly pierced by the reflection that perhaps old Jervaise had thus postured to win the esteem of his daughter’s governess.  He, it is true, had had dignity and prestige on his side, but surely he must have condescended to win her.  Had he, too, dreamed dreams of sacrifice at the height of his passion?  Had he alternately grovelled and strutted to attract the admiration of his lady?  I found the reflection markedly distasteful.  I was sorry again, now, for the old man.  He had suffered heavy penalties for his lapse.  I remembered Mrs. Banks’s hint that his wife had adopted Brenda in the first place in order that he might have before him a constant reminder of his disgrace.  I could believe that.  It was just such a piece of chicane as I should expect from that timid hawk, Mrs. Jervaise.  But while I pitied the man, I could not look upon his furtive gratifications of passion with anything but distaste.

No; if my love for Anne was to be worthy of so wonderful an object, I must not stupefy myself with these vapours of romance.  The ideal held something finer than this, something that I could not define, but that conveyed the notion, however indeterminately, of equality.  I thought of my fancy that we had “recognised” each other the night before.  Surely that fancy contained the germ of the true understanding, of the conceptions of affinity and remembrance.

No tie of our present earth life could be weighed against that idea of a spirit love, enduring through the ages; a love transcending and immortal, repeating itself in ever ascending stages of rapture.  The flesh was but a passing instrument of temporal expression, a gross medium through which the spirit could speak only in poor, inarticulate phrases of its magnificent recognition of an eternal bond. ...  Oh!  I was soon high in the air again, riding my new Pegasus through the loftiest altitudes of lonely exaltation.  I was a conqueror while I had the world to myself.  But when at last I heard the rustle of a woman’s dress on the path behind me, I was nothing more than a shy, self-conscious product of the twentieth century, all too painfully aware of his physical shortcomings.

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