But such wisdom was beyond his reach.  He had felt suddenly, and once for all, in the last hour, the power and visible presence of his love.  He had never in his life been so moved by any passion as he was by the joy that stirred his heart when he heard the rustle of her dress in the hall and saw her white hand resting lightly on the dark wood of the stairs.  As she walked into the parlor, from her face and her hair, from every movement of her limbs, from every flutter of her soft and gauzy garments, there came to him an assertion of her power over him that filled him with a delicious awe.  She represented to him, as he had never felt it before, the embodied mystery and majesty of womanhood.  During all the long conversation that had followed, he had been conscious of a sort of dual operation of his mind, like that familiar to the eaters of hashish.  With one part of him he had been carrying on a light and shallow conversation, as an excuse to remain in her presence and to keep his eyes upon her, and with all the more active energies of his being he had been giving himself up to an act of passionate adoration of her.  The thoughts that uttered themselves to him, as he chatted about all sorts of indifferent things, were something like these:  How can it have ever happened that such beauty, such dignity, such physical perfection could come together in one person, and the best and sweetest heart have met them there?  If she knew her value, her pride would ruin her.  In her there is everything, and everything else beside:  Galatea, the statue, with a Christian soul.  She is the best that could fall to any man, but better for me than for any one else.  Anybody who sees her must love her, but I was made for nothing else but to love her.  This is what mythologies meant.  She is Venus:  she loves laughter, and her teeth and lips are divine.  She is Diana:  she makes the night beautiful; she has the eye and the arm of an athlete goddess.  But she is a woman:  she is Mrs. Belding’s daughter Alice.  Thank heaven, she lives here.  I can call and see her.  To-morrow, I shall ride with her.  She will love and marry some day like other women.  Who is the man who shall ever kiss her between those straight brows?  And fancies more audacious and extravagant fed the fever of his heart as he talked deliberate small talk, still holding his hat and whip in his hand.

He knew it was time he should go, but could not leave the joy of his eyes and ears.  At last his thoughts, like a vase too full, ran over into speech.  It was without premeditation, almost without conscious intention.  The under-tone simply became dominant and overwhelmed the frivolous surface talk.  She had been talking of her mother’s plans of summer travel, and he suddenly interrupted her by saying in the most natural tone in the world:  “I must see your mother before she decides.  I hope you will make no plans without me.  I shall go where you go.  I shall never be away from you again, if I can help it.  No, no, do not frown about it.  I must tell you.  I love you; my whole life is yours.”