She had seen crepe de Chine yesterday for the first time; Mrs. King was making a blouse of it.  Marcella had loved its fine sheen and delicacy.  But it did not seem much use as armour.

“Here’s this thing happened to wake me up, give me insight.  There is the plausibleness of it, the temptation of it.  I know last night taught me things, millions of things.  It promises to teach me more each time it’s repeated.  And each time it’s repeated I get more and more crepe de Chine patches on my armour.  I get bowled over like a ninepin.  How am I to know I’ll not be permanently bowled over—­till I get—­like—­like—­” A long line of those people she had pitied for their weakness came to her.  “I nearly was this morning.  If it hadn’t been for that nice kind nail in the roof!  Wagner knew all about this when he made the witch-woman realize that her kiss had unlocked all the world’s wisdom for the fool.  And one can’t help wondering how it is that a thing so natural and beautiful can be bad for one—­”

She began to bite her thumb-nail fiercely and stopped, disgusted with herself, as she realized how she had often condemned Louis for exactly the same habit when he got perplexed.

“You see!” she told the sun desperately, “even a little thing like that!  I do think we’re censorious and cruel to each other.”

She began to walk about the roof.  Her foot was bleeding neglected; at every step she left a little, red print unnoticed.

“Of course it’s natural and beautiful—­and abominably instructive!  Where the wrong comes in is that it gets you down, beats you, takes hold of you.  Eating bread would be wrong if you made an orgy of it.  So would religion, or anything.  All this time I’ve been posing as something so splendid, wanting to save Louis from Drink; I’ve been deceiving myself.  I’ve been in love with him.  And it’s the sort of love that would soon degenerate into an orgy—­if I let it!”

She felt that she was so full of ideas that she was getting muddled, but one thing was very clear.

“I wonder if that queer remark in Genesis, ‘Adam knew Eve, his wife,’ means this strange understanding that has happened to me to-night?  I’ve often been puzzled by what it could mean.  Did it mean that he became aware, in a flash as I did, of what this sex business might mean in his life—­how it might be a chain to him as it has been to so many people?  It’s queer—­it’s like waking up from a dream that’s been over you all your life, and suddenly seeing things very clear.  I see them clear now.”  She looked out across the shining sea.  “Either it can be a chain, or it can be a Spear of Deliverance as it was to Parsifal.”

She looked from the sea to Louis, unconscious, untroubled by problems now that she had taken his burdens upon herself.  She realized that she had even more battles to fight now.  She had her own; there was an enemy within her own camp.  Even as she stood there watching him her nails gripped the stone coping fiercely because half of her was wanting last night’s tornado back again.