Part 47 (1/2)
”Lois!”
”I can not help it. There is in her--in all such women--a sly, smooth, sleek and graceful beast, ever seeming to invite or offer a caress----”
”She is sweet and womanly; a warm friend of many years.”
”Oh! And am I not--womanly?”
”Are you, entirely?”
She looked at me troubled:
”How would you have me be more womanly?”
”Be less a comrade, more a sweetheart.”
”Familiar?”
My heart was beating fast:
”Familiar to my arms. I love you.”
”I--do not permit myself to desire your arms. Can I help saying so--if you ask me?”
”When I love you so----”
”No. Why are you, after all, like other men, when I once hoped----”
”Other men love. All men love. How can I be different----”
”You are more finely made. You comprehend higher thoughts. You can command your lesser pa.s.sions.”
”You say that very lightly, who have no need to command yours!”
”How do you know?” she said in a low voice.
”Because you have none to curb--else you could better understand the greater ones.”
She sat with head lowered, playing with a blade of gra.s.s. After a while she looked up at me, a trifle confused.
”Until I knew you, I entertained but one living pa.s.sion--to find my mother and hold her in my arms--and have of her all that I had ached for through many empty and loveless years. Since I have known you that desire has never changed. She is my living pa.s.sion, and my need.”
She bent her head again and sat playing with the scented gra.s.ses. Then, half to herself, she said:
”I think I am still loyal to her if I have placed you beside her in my heart. For I have not yet invested you with a pa.s.sion less innocent than that which burns for her.”
She lifted her head slowly, propping herself up on one arm, and looked intently at me.
”What do you know about me, that you say I am unwomanly and cold?” Her voice was low, but the words rang a little.
”Do not deceive yourself,” she said. ”I am fas.h.i.+oned for love as thoroughly as are you--for love sacred or profane. But who am I to dare put on my crown of womanhood? Let me first know myself--let me know what I am, and if I truly have even a right to the very name I wear.
Let me see my own mother face to face--hold her first of all in my embrace--give my lips first to her, yield to her my first caresses....