ent--God and
victim--then he dilated with intense surprise, and his remote soul stood
up tall and knew itself alone. He didn't want it, not at all. He knew
he was apart. And he looked back over the whole mystery of their
love-contact. Only his soul was apart.

He was aware of the strength and beauty and godlikeness that his breast
was then to her--the magic. But himself, he stood far off, like Moses'
sister Miriam. She would drink the one drop of his innermost heart's
blood, and he would be carrion. As Cleopatra killed her lovers in the
morning. Surely they knew that death was their just climax. They had
approached the climax. Accept then.

But his soul stood apart, and could have nothing to do with it. If he
had really been tempted, he would have gone on, and she might have had
his central heart's blood. Yes, and thrown away the carrion. He would
have been willing.

But fatally, he was not tempted. His soul stood apart and decided. At
the bottom of his soul he disliked her. Or if not her, then her whole
motive. Her whole life-mode. He was neither God nor victim: neither
greater nor less than himself. His soul, in its isolation as she lay on
his breast, chose it so, with the soul's inevitability. So, there was no
temptation.

When it was sufficiently light, he kissed her and left her. Quietly he
left the silent flat. He had some difficulty in unfastening the various
locks and bars and catches of the massive door downstairs, and began, in
irritation and anger, to feel he was a prisoner, that he was locked
in. But suddenly the ponderous door came loose, and he was out in the
street. The door shut heavily behind him, with a shudder. He was out in
the morning streets of Florence.

CHAPTER XX. THE BROKEN ROD

The day was rainy. Aaron stayed indoors alone, and copied music and
slept. He felt the same stunned, withered feeling as before, but less
intensely, less disastrously, this time. He knew now, without argument
or thought that he would never go again to the Marchesa: not as a lover.
He would go away from it all. He did not dislike her. But he would never
see her again. A great gulf had opened, leaving him alone on the far
side.

He did not go out till after dinner. When he got downstairs he found the
heavy night-door closed. He wondered: then remembered the Signorina's
fear of riots and disturbances. As again he fumbled with the catches,
he felt that the doors of Florence were trying to prevent his egress