Man and Maid

"Now read, will you please."

I lay back in my chair and shaded my eye with my hand.

"Do you want any special poem?"

"Read several, and then get to 'Listen Beloved,' there is a point in it

I want to discuss with you."

She took the book and settled herself with her back to the window, a

little behind me.

"Come forward, please. It is more comfortable to listen when one can see

the reader."

She rose reluctantly, and pulled her chair nearer me and the fire, then

she began. She chose those poems the least sensuous, and the more

abstract. I watched her all the time. She read "Rutland Gate," and her

voice showed how she sympathized with the man. Then she read "Atavism,"

and her little highly bred face looked savage! I realized with a quiver

of delight that she is the most passionate creature,--of course she is,

with that father and mother! Wait until I have awakened her enough, and

she will break through all the barriers of convention and reserve, and

pride.

Ah! That will be a moment!

"Now read 'Listen Beloved.'"

She turned the pages, found it, and began, and when she reached the two

verses which had so interested me, she looked up for a second, and her

lovely eyes were misty and far away. Then she went on and finished,

letting the book drop in her lap.

"That accords with your theory of reincarnation, that souls meet again

and again?"

"Yes."

"In one of the books I got upon the subject it said all marriages were

karmic debts or rewards. I wonder what our marriage is, don't you?

Perhaps we were two enemies who injured each other, and now have to

make up by being of use, each to each."

"Probably," she was looking down.

"Do you ever have that strange feeling that you are searching for

something all the time, something of the soul, that you are

unsatisfied?"

"Yes, often."

"Read those last verses again."

Her voice is the most beautiful I have ever heard, modulated,

expressive, filled with vibrant vitality and feeling, but this is the

first time she has read anything appertaining to love. I could hear that

she was restraining all emphasis, and trying to give the sensuous

passionate words a commonplace cold interpretation. Never before has she

read so monotonously. I knew, ("sensed" is the modern word), that this

was because she probably felt and understood every line and did not want

to let me see it. Suddenly I found myself becoming suffused with

emotion.