gracious spirit with which she did it made him love her more madly than
ever. They talked first of the borrowed books, of the Swinburne he was
devoted to, and of the Browning he did not understand; and she led the
conversation on from subject to subject, while she pondered the problem
of how she could be of help to him. She had thought of this often since
their first meeting. She wanted to help him. He made a call upon her
pity and tenderness that no one had ever made before, and the pity was
not so much derogatory of him as maternal in her. Her pity could not be
of the common sort, when the man who drew it was so much man as to shock
her with maidenly fears and set her mind and pulse thrilling with strange
thoughts and feelings. The old fascination of his neck was there, and
there was sweetness in the thought of laying her hands upon it. It
seemed still a wanton impulse, but she had grown more used to it. She
did not dream that in such guise new-born love would epitomize itself.
Nor did she dream that the feeling he excited in her was love. She
thought she was merely interested in him as an unusual type possessing
various potential excellencies, and she even felt philanthropic about it.

She did not know she desired him; but with him it was different. He knew
that he loved her, and he desired her as he had never before desired
anything in his life. He had loved poetry for beauty's sake; but since
he met her the gates to the vast field of love-poetry had been opened
wide. She had given him understanding even more than Bulfinch and
Gayley. There was a line that a week before he would not have favored
with a second thought--"God's own mad lover dying on a kiss"; but now it
was ever insistent in his mind. He marvelled at the wonder of it and the
truth; and as he gazed upon her he knew that he could die gladly upon a
kiss. He felt himself God's own mad lover, and no accolade of knighthood
could have given him greater pride. And at last he knew the meaning of
life and why he had been born.