love came in sunbeams between
them, when she was like a flower in the sun to him, so
beautiful, so shining, so intensely dear that he could scarcely
bear it. Then as if his soul had six wings of bliss he stood
absorbed in praise, feeling the radiance from the Almighty beat
through him like a pulse, as he stood in the upright flame of
praise, transmitting the pulse of Creation.

And ever and again he appeared to her as the dread flame of
power. Sometimes, when he stood in the doorway, his face lit up,
he seemed like an Annunciation to her, her heart beat fast. And
she watched him, suspended. He had a dark, burning being that
she dreaded and resisted. She was subject to him as to the Angel
of the Presence. She waited upon him and heard his will, and she
trembled in his service.

Then all this passed away. Then he loved her for her
childishness and for her strangeness to him, for the wonder of
her soul which was different from his soul, and which made him
genuine when he would be false. And she loved him for the way he
sat loosely in a chair, or for the way he came through a door
with his face open and eager. She loved his ringing, eager
voice, and the touch of the unknown about him, his absolute
simplicity.

Yet neither of them was quite satisfied. He felt, somewhere,
that she did not respect him. She only respected him as far as
he was related to herself. For what he was, beyond her, she had
no care. She did not care for what he represented in himself. It
is true, he did not know himself what he represented. But
whatever it was she did not really honour it. She did no service
to his work as a lace-designer, nor to himself as bread-winner.
Because he went down to the office and worked every
day--that entitled him to no respect or regard from her, he
knew. Rather she despised him for it. And he almost loved her
for this, though at first it maddened him like an insult.

What was much deeper, she soon came to combat his deepest
feelings. What he thought about life and about society and
mankind did not matter very much to her: he was right enough to
be insignificant. This was again galling to him. She would judge
beyond him on these things. But at length he came to accept her
judgments, discovering them as if they were his own. It was not
here the deep trouble lay. The deep root of his enmity lay in
the fact that she jeered at his soul. He was inarticulate and
stupid in thought. But to some things he clung passionatel