on all sides of the universe; no dead stuff, no longer any afflicting
lumpishness. His brain was vivifying light. And how humane he was! how
supremely tolerant! Where she had really thought instead of flippantly
tapping at the doors of thought, or crying vagrantly for an echo, his
firm footing in the region thrilled her; and where she had felt deeper
than fancifully, his wise tenderness overwhelmed. Strange to consider:
with all his precious gifts, which must make the gift of life thrice dear
to him, he was fearless. Less by what he said than by divination she
discerned that he knew not fear. If for only that, she would have hung
to him like his shadow. She could have detected a brazen pretender.
A meaner mortal vaunting his great stores she would have written down
coxcomb. Her social training and natural perception raised her to a
height to measure the bombastical and distinguish it from the eloquently
lofty. He spoke of himself, as the towering Alp speaks out at a first
view, bidding that which he was be known. Fearless, confident, able, he
could not but be, as he believed himself, indomitable. She who was this
man's mate would consequently wed his possessions, including courage.
Clotilde at once reached the conclusion of her having it in an equal
degree. Was she not displaying it? The worthy people of the company
stared, as she now perceived, and she was indifferent; her relatives were
present without disturbing her exaltation. She wheeled above their heads
in the fiery chariot beside her sun-god. It could not but be courage,
active courage, superior to her previous tentative steps--the verbal
temerities she had supposed so dauntless. For now she was in action, now
she was being tried to match the preacher and incarnation of the virtues
of action!

Alvan shaped a comparison of her with Paris, his beloved of cities--the
symbolized goddess of the lightning brain that is quick to conceive,
eager to realize ideas, impassioned for her hero, but ever putting him to