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Stephen Archer and Other Tales by George MacDonald
page 99 of 331 (29%)
"A girl!" shouted Photogen, and started to his feet in wrath. "If you
were a man, I should kill you."

"A man?" repeated Nycteris: "what is that? How could I be that? We are
both girls--are we not?"

"No, I am not a girl," he answered; "--although," he added, changing
his tone, and casting himself on the ground at her feet, "I have given
you too good reason to call me one."

"Oh, I see!" returned Nycteris. "No, of course! you can't be a girl:
girls are not afraid--without reason. I understand now: it is because
you are not a girl that you are so frightened."

Photogen twisted and writhed upon the grass.

"No, it is not," he said sulkily; "it is this horrible darkness that
creeps into me, goes all through me, into the very marrow of my
bones--that is what makes me behave like a girl. If only the sun would
rise!"

"The sun! what is it?" cried Nycteris, now in her turn conceiving a
vague fear.

Then Photogen broke into a rhapsody, in which he vainly sought to
forget his.

"It is the soul, the life, the heart, the glory of the universe," he
said. "The worlds dance like motes in his beams. The heart of man is
strong and brave in his light, and when it departs his courage grows
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