grafted on to them, as one might perhaps graft a common pink rose on to a
thornstem. It flowered oddly enough, but it did not alter their blood.

And Egbert was a born rose. The age-long breeding had left him with a
delightful spontaneous passion. He was not clever, nor even 'literary'.
No, but the intonation of his voice, and the movement of his supple,
handsome body, and the fine texture of his flesh and his hair, the slight
arch of his nose, the quickness of his blue eyes would easily take the
place of poetry. Winifred loved him, loved him, this southerner, as a
higher being. A _higher_ being, mind you. Not a deeper. And as for him,
he loved her in passion with every fibre of him. She was the very warm
stuff of life to him.

Wonderful then, those days at Crockham Cottage, the first days, all alone
save for the woman who came to work in the mornings. Marvellous days,
when she had all his tall, supple, fine-fleshed youth to herself, for
herself, and he had her like a ruddy fire into which he could cast
himself for rejuvenation. Ah, that it might never end, this passion, this
marriage! The flame of their two bodies burnt again into that old
cottage, that was haunted already by so much by-gone, physical desire.
You could not be in the dark room for an hour without the influences
coming over you. The hot blood-desire of by-gone yeomen, there in this
old den where they had lusted and bred for so many generations. The
silent house, dark, with thick, timbered walls and the big black
chimney-place, and the sense of secrecy. Dark, with low, little windows,
sunk into the earth. Dark, like a lair where strong beasts had lurked and
mated, lonely at night and lonely by day, left to themselves and their
own intensity for so many generations. It seemed to cast a spell on the
two young people. They became different. There was a curious secret glow
about them, a certain slumbering flame hard to understand, that enveloped