ll her interests were in senses of her
own; or in the senses of men and women who fell beneath her eye; pale,
narrow temples were hers, but crowded with what sensational memories! A
hundred and a few odd pounds, every ounce vivid with health and
rhythmic with desire; every thought a kiss loved, missed, or hoped for;
a frail little flame that needed only time to destroy an arena of
gladiators. Curving, pearly nails with flecks of white in them, a light
low laugh, a sweet low voice! Perhaps this was her charm, a sort of
_samosen_ tone--low lilting minors that have to do with dusk and
gardens and starlight....

There is not even a laughing pretense here that Adelaide was a real
woman; but real women, even in this era of woman, often fail to
remember what pure attractions to man, are their silences and their
minor tones.

Just a fortnight--but what a tearing it was to leave her! Old Mother
Nature must have writhed at this parting--groaned at the sight of the
boy staring back from the high stern of the _Truxton_, at the stars
lowering over the city and the woman, Adelaide. Possibly she retained
something from the depth of his individuality.... Bedient would not
have said so; but there is no doubt that her importance in his life was
that of a _mannequin_ upon which to drape his ideals. Had he seen her,
in the later years, he would have met the dull misery of
disillusionment. Adelaide was a boy's sensational trophy. Her distant
beauty and color was the art and pigment of his own mind.

A soul rudiment, a mental bud, and a beautiful prophylactic body--such
was her equipment. He dreamed of her as a love flower of
inextinguishable sweetness. The mere abstraction of her sex,--colorless
enough to most grown men,--was a sort of miracle to the boy. He made it
shining with his idealism.... Frail arms held out to him; cool arms
that turned electric with fervor. Unashamed, she took him as her
own....

Exquisite devourer, yet she had much to do in bringing forth from the
latent, one of the rarest gifts a boy can have--lovelier than royalty
and fine as genius--the blue flower of fastidiousness. Adelaide, all
unconcerned, identified herself with this, and it lived in the
foreground of his mind. She became his Southland, his isle of the sea.
Winds from the South were her kisses--almost all the kisses he knew for
years afterward. Living women were less to him than her memory. Facing
the South, through many a hot-breathed night, he saw h