ively feminine or masculine, as the case may be, that
their entire comprehension by both sexes is not possible. Intuition,
imagination, sympathy may help a great deal; men and women will accept
much from each other which they cannot to their reasoning satisfaction
account for, and, if the difference serves only to enhance, by its
mystery, the melodiousness of the eternal human duet, it also proves
that, while the singers may be in harmony, they are never in absolute
unison.

"You know how much I love you," said Brigit, "you know it. Yet there is
an interior cloister of your mind which you keep wholly to yourself. You
never ask me there. I watch your face--it tells me nothing. You have not
yet made me your friend. If you were in trouble you would go to Pensee,
because she is older and she is used to responsibilities. But you hide
things from me because you are afraid of giving me pain."

"There is reason enough why I should not tell you of every passing mood,
nor draw you into some invincible personal sadness, and why I should not
invite you into the 'interior cloister' of my mind. Nobody deliberates
to do what he cannot help. There is always something questioning within
me, and a truth is not to be set aside by any other truth whatever. We
can only fix our jaws and grip our hands in useless wonder at the
contradictions of the soul. I would tell you all my heart," he added,
with a laugh, "but it would take too long!"

He had been startled by the acuteness of her perception. Too probably he
had carried his reserve to the selfish pitch, and in over-mastering,
with silence, his own moods, afflicted her who had become now, by love,
inseparable from his spiritual as well as his outward life. But there is
something in beauty--just as there is something in youth--which one
fears to disturb, lest a change should alter, or mar, in the faintest
degree, the sufficient loveliness, the unconscious charm. Is it not for
this cause that many dependent natures find classic perfection cold,
superb scenery unsympathetic, and the spectacle of careless happiness
embittering? Others, of imaginative temperament, prefer that their idols
should remain impassive, and, granted the inspiration arising from a
fair appearance, ask no more, but find their delight in bestowing, from
the riches of their own gratitude, adorable attributes and endless
worship. Orange, as many other men of idealising tendencies, took his
human solace for the discourageme