quences. Not that any of the more sophisticated and
accomplished women who had attracted him successively would be likely to
rise inconveniently between them. For he had quite disabused his mind
of the assumption that the idol of his fancy was an integral part of the
personality in which it had sojourned for a long or a short while.

* * *

To his Well-Beloved he had always been faithful; but she had had many
embodiments. Each individuality known as Lucy, Jane, Flora, Evangeline,
or what-not, had been merely a transient condition of her. He did not
recognize this as an excuse or as a defence, but as a fact simply.
Essentially she was perhaps of no tangible substance; a spirit, a dream,
a frenzy, a conception, an aroma, an epitomized sex, a light of the eye,
a parting of the lips. God only knew what she really was; Pierston did
not. She was indescribable.

Never much considering that she was a subjective phenomenon vivified by
the weird influences of his descent and birthplace, the discovery of
her ghostliness, of her independence of physical laws and failings, had
occasionally given him a sense of fear. He never knew where she next
would be, whither she would lead him, having herself instant access
to all ranks and classes, to every abode of men. Sometimes at night he
dreamt that she was 'the wile-weaving Daughter of high Zeus' in person,
bent on tormenting him for his sins against her beauty in his art--the
implacable Aphrodite herself indeed. He knew that he loved the
masquerading creature wherever he found her, whether with blue eyes,
black eyes, or brown; whether presenting herself as tall, fragile, or
plump. She was never in two places at once; but hitherto she had never
been in one place long.

By making this clear to his mind some time before to-day, he had escaped
a good deal of ugly self-reproach. It was simply that she who always
attracted him, and led him whither she would as by a silken thread, had
not remained the occupant of the same fleshly tabernacle in her career
so far. Whether she would ultimately settle down to one he could not
say.

Had he felt that she was becoming manifest in Avice, he would have tried
to believe that this was the terminal spot of her migrations, and have
been content to abide by his words. But did he see the Well-Beloved in
Avice at all? The question was somewhat disturbing.

He had reached the brow of the hill, and descended toward