"
And this was true. He was still under the fresh sortilege of their
common life, the surprise of novelty, the flattered vanity of his
possession of this woman; for a man must feel that, unless he has ceased
to be masculine. Her eyes moved in his direction, rested on him,
then returned to their stare into the deeper gloom at the foot of the
straight tree-trunks, whose spreading crowns were slowly withdrawing
their shade. The warm air stirred slightly about her motionless head.
She would not look at him, from some obscure fear of betraying herself.
She felt in her innermost depths an irresistible desire to give herself
up to him more completely, by some act of absolute sacrifice. This was
something of which he did not seem to have an idea. He was a strange
being without needs. She felt his eyes fixed upon her; and as he kept
silent, she said uneasily--for she didn't know what his silences might
mean:
"And so you lived with that friend--that good man?"
"Excellent fellow," Heyst responded, with a readiness that she did not
expect. "But it was a weakness on my part. I really didn't want to, only
he wouldn't let me off, and I couldn't explain. He was the sort of man
to whom you can't explain anything. He was extremely sensitive, and it
would have been a tigerish thing to do to mangle his delicate feelings
by the sort of plain speaking that would have been necessary.
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