g spirit-kisses, which burn
but through the eyes, may desecrate. It is strange that man should have
so long taken the precisely opposite attitude in this matter, caring
only for the observation of the vessel, and apparently dreaming not of
any other possible approach to the sanctities. Probably, however, his
care has not been of sanctities at all. Indeed, most have, doubtless,
little suspicion of the existence of such, and the symbol has been and
is but a selfish superstition amongst them--woman, a symbol whose
meaning is forgotten, but still the object of an ignorant veneration,
not unrelated to the preservation of game.

Narcissus took my remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently
feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred
that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character,
hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold
reception of them, he had felt were more distasteful to her than
otherwise. He had indeed, he said, ceased even these the last few days,
as her reserve always made him feel foolish, as a man fondling a fair
face in his dream wakes on a sudden to find that he is but grimacing at
the air. This reassured me, and I felt little further anxiety. However,
this security only proved how little I really understood the weak side
of my friend. I had not realised how much he really was Narcissus, and
how dear to him was a new mirror. My speaking to him was the one wrong
course possible to be taken. Instead of confirming his growing intention
of indifference, it had, as might have been foreseen, the directly
opposite effect; and from the moment of his learning that Hesper
secretly loved him, she at once became invested with a new glamour, and
grew daily more and more the forbidden fascination few can resist.

I did not learn this for many months. Meanwhile Narcissus chose to
deceive me for the first and only time. At last he told me all; and how
different was his manner of telling it from his former gay relations of
conquest. One needed not to hear the words to see he was unveiling a
sacred thing, a holiness so white and hidden, the most reverent word
seemed a profanation; and, as he laboured for the least soiled wherein
to enfold the revelation, his soul seemed as a maid torn with the
blushing tremors of a new knowledge. Men only speak so after great and
wonderful travail, and by that token I knew Narcissus loved at last. It
had seemed