t acquiescence that I take my rest,
Contented to be clay?"

She "smiles him slow forgiveness"--nothing more; he is dismissed, must
travel forth again. _This_ time he may return, untinged by the ray which
he is to traverse. She sends him, deliberately; he must break through
the quintessential whiteness that surrounds her--but he is to come back
unsmirched. So she pitilessly, for all her "pity," has decreed.

And patient, mute, obedient, always he has gone--until this day. This
day his patience fails him, and he speaks. Once more he had come
back--once more been "pardoned." But the pity was so gentle--like a
moon-beam. He had almost hoped the smile would pass the "pallid moonbeam
limit," be "transformed at last to sunlight and salvation." If she could
pass that goal and "gain love's birth," he scarce would know his clay
from gold's own self; "for gold means love." . . . But no; the "sad slow
silver smile" had meant, as ever, naught but pity, pardon, acquiescence
in his lesserness for _him_. _She_ acquiesced not; she keeps her love
for the "spirit-seven" before God's throne.[291:1]

He then made one supreme appeal for

"Love, the love sole and whole without alloy."

Vainly! Such an appeal "must be felt, not heard." Her calm regard was
unchanged--nay, rather it had grown harsh and hard, had seemed to imply
disdain, repulsion, and he could not face those things; he rose from his
kissing of her feet--he _did_ go forth again. This time he might return,
immaculate, from the path of that "lambent flamelet." . . . He knew he
could not, but--he _might_! She promises that he can: should he not
trust her?

* * * * *

And now, to-day, once more he is returned. Still she stands, still she
listens, still she smiles! But he protests at last:

"Surely I had your sanction when I faced,
Fared forth upon that untried yellow ray
Whence I retrack my steps?"

The crimson, the purple had been explored; from them he had come back
deep-stained. How has the yellow used him? He has placed himself again
for judgment before her "blank pure soul, alike the source and tomb of
that prismatic glow." To this yellow he has subjected himself utterly:
she _had_ ordained it! He was to "bathe, to burnish himself, soul and
body, to swim and swathe in yellow licence." And here he is: "absurd and
frightful," "suffused with crocus, saffron, orange"--just as he had been
with crimson, purple!

She