Her having sought him he read for the frank surrender which he was ready
to match with a loyal devotion to his captive. Her coming cleared
everything.

Clotilde introduced him to her friends, and he was enrolled a member of
the party. His appearance was that of a man to whom the sphinx has
whispered. They ascended to the topmost of the mountain stages, to
another caravanserai of tourists, whence the singular people emerge in
morning darkness night-capped and blanketed, and behold the great orb of
day at his birth--he them.

Walking slowly beside Clotilde on the mountain way, Alvan said: 'Two
wishes! Mine was in your breast. You wedded yours to it. At last!--and
we are one. Not a word more of time lost. My wish is almost a will in
itself--was it not?--and has been wooing yours all this while!--till the
sleeper awakened, the well-spring leapt up from the earth; and our two
wishes united dare the world to divide them. What can? My wish was your
destiny, yours is mine. We are one.' He poetized on his passion, and
dramatized it: 'Stood you at the altar, I would pluck you from the man
holding your hand! There is no escape for you. Nay, into the vaults,
were you to grow pale and need my vital warmth--down to the vaults!
Speak--or no: look! That will do. You hold a Titan in your eyes, like
metal in the furnace, to turn him to any shape you please, liquid or
solid. You make him a god: he is the river Alvan or the rock Alvan: but
fixed or flowing, he is lord of you. That is the universal penalty: you
must, if you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature: if
you raise him to heaven, you must be his! Ay, look! I know the eyes!
They can melt granite, they can freeze fire. Pierce me, sweet eyes! And
now flutter, for there is that in me to make them.'