Athalie

"Then why are you so serene under the menace of this miserable affair?

For myself I care nothing; I'd thank God for a divorce on any terms.

But you--dearest--dearest!--I cannot endure the thought of you

entangled in such a shameful--"

"Where is the shame, Clive? The real shame, I mean. In me there are

two selves; neither have, as yet, been disgraced by any disobedience

of any law framed by men for women. Nor shall I break men's

laws--under which women are governed without their own consent--unless

no other road to our common destiny presents itself for me to

follow."... She smiled, watching his intent and sombre face: "Don't fear for me, dear. I have come to understand what life is, and

I mean to live it, wholesomely, gloriously, uncrippled in body and

mind, unmaimed by folk-ways and by laws as ephemeral--" she turned

toward the open windows--"as those frail-winged things that float in

the sunshine above Spring Pond, yonder, born at sunrise, and at

sundown dead."

She laughed, leaning there on her dimpled elbows, stripping a peach of

its velvet skin: "The judges of the earth,--and the power of them!--What is it, dear,

compared to the authority of love! To-day men have their human will of

men, judging, condemning, imprisoning, slaying, as the moral fashion

of the hour dictates. To-morrow folk-ways change; judge and victim

vanish along with fashions obsolete--both alike, their brief reign

ended.

"For judge and victim are awake at last; and in the twinkling of an

eye, the old world has become a memory or a shrine for those tranquil

pilgrims who return to worship for a while where love lies

sleeping.... And then return no more."

She rose, signed him to remain seated, came around to where he sat,

and perched herself on the arm of his chair.

"If you don't mind," she said, "I shall smooth out that troubled

crease between your eyebrows." And she encircled his head with both

arms, and laid her smooth hands across his forehead. Then she touched

his hair lightly, with her lips.

"We are great sinners," she murmured, "are we not, my darling?"

And drew his head against her breast.

"Of what am I robbing her, Clive? Of the power to humiliate you,

make you unhappy. It is an honest theft.

"What else am I stealing from her? Not love, not gratitude, not duty,

nothing of tenderness, nor of pride nor sympathy. I take nothing,

then, from her. She has nothing for me to steal--unless it be the

plain gold ring she never wears.... And I prefer a new one--if,

indeed, I am to wear one."