would have staked his very life upon it....

And, meanwhile, he made love openly--under any other conditions,
outrageously--to Miriam, whose figure of soft beauty moving silently
about the house helped to redeem it. She rendered him quiet little
services of her own accord that pleased him immensely, for occasionally
he detected her delicate perfume about his room, and he was sure it was
not Mrs. Mawle who put the fresh heather in the glass jars upon his
table, or arranged his papers with such neat precision on the desk.

Her delicate, shining little face with its wreath of dark hair, went
with him everywhere, hauntingly, possessingly; and when he kissed her,
as he did now every morning and every evening under Mr. Skale's very
eyes, it was like plunging his lips into a bed of wild flowers that no
artificial process had ever touched. Something in him sang when she was
near. She had, too, what he used to call as a boy "night eyes"--changing
after dusk into such shadowy depths that to look _at_ them was to look
beyond and through them. The sight could never rest only upon their
surface. Through her eyes, then, stretched all the delight of that old
immense play-ground ... where names clothed, described, and summoned
living realities.

His attitude towards her was odd yet comprehensible; for though his
desire was unquestionably great, it was not particularly active, probably
because he knew that he held her and that no aggressive effort was
necessary. Secure in the feeling that she belonged to him, and he to her,
he also found that he had little enough to say to her, never anything to
ask. She knew and understood it all beforehand; expression was uncalled
for. As well might the brimming kettle sing to the water "I contain you,"
or the water reply "I fill you!"