with sordid Chaos he mingles obscurely.
Her flanks were of veined marble;
There were stains upon her._

_But she who passes, lonely,
Through waste places,
Through bog and forest;
Who follows boar and stag
Unwearied;
Who sleeps, fearless, among the hills;
Though she track the wilds,
Though she breast the crags,
Choosing no path--
Her kirtle tears not,
Her ankles gleam,
Her sandals are silver._

IX

It was midnight when I reached my own door that night, but I was in no
mood for lying in bed stark awake in the spiritual isolation of
darkness. I went straight to my study, meaning to make up a fire and
then hypnotize myself into some form of lethargy by letting my eyes
follow the printed lines of a book. If reading in any other sense than
physical habit proved beyond me, at least the narcotic monotony of habit
might serve.

But I found a fire, already falling to embers, and Susan before it,
curled into my big wing chair, her feet beneath her, her hands lying
palms upward in her lap. This picture fixed me in the doorway while my
throat tightened. Susan did not stir, but she was not sleeping. She had
withdrawn.

Presently she spoke, absently--from Saturn's rings; or the moon.

"Ambo? I've been waiting to talk to you; but now I can't or I'll lose
it--the whole movement. It's like a symphony--great brasses groaning and
cursing--and then violins tearing through the tumult to soar above it."

Her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them again it was to shake
herself free from whatever spell had bound her. She half yawned, and
smiled.

"Gone, dear--all gone. It's not your fault. Words wouldn't hold it.
Music might--but music doesn't come.... Oh, poor Ambo--you've had a
wretched time of it! How tired you look!"

I shut the door quietly and went to her, sitting on the hearth rug at
her feet, my knees in my arms.

"Sweetheart," I said, "it seems that in spite of myself I've done you
little good and about all the harm possible." And I made a clean breast
of all the facts and fears that the evening had developed. "So you see,"
I ended, "what my guardianship amounts to!"

Susan's hand came to my shoulder and drew me back against her knees; she
did not remove her hand.

"Ambo," she protested gently, "I'm just a little angry with you, I
think."

"No wonder!"