slough she would have to plunge in before he could make her his own
with the world's consent, was already up to her throat. She must, and
without further hesitation, be steeped, that he might drag her out,
washed of the imputed defilement, and radiant, as she was in character.
Reflection now said this; not impulse. Her words rang through him. At
every meeting she said things to confound his estimate of the wits of
women, or be remembered for some spirited ring they had: A high wind
will make a dead leaf fly like a bird. He murmured it and flew with
her. She quickened a vein of imagination that gave him entrance to a
strangely brilliant sphere, above his own, where, she sustaining, he too
could soar; and he did, scarce conscious of walking home, undressing,
falling asleep.

The act of waking was an instantaneous recovery of his emotional rapture
of the overnight; nor was it a bar to graver considerations. His Chief
had gone down to a house in the country; his personal business was to
see and sound the followers of their party--after another sight of his
Tony. She would be sure to counsel sagaciously; she always did. She had
a marvellous intuition of the natures of the men he worked with, solely
from his chance descriptions of them; it was as though he started the
bird and she transfixed it. And she should not have matter to rule her
smooth brows: that he swore to. She should sway him as she pleased,
be respected after her prescribed manner. The promise must be exacted;
nothing besides, promise.--You see, Tony, you cannot be less than Tony
to me now, he addressed the gentle phantom of her. Let me have your
word, and I am your servant till the Session ends.--Tony blushes her
swarthy crimson: Diana, fluttering, rebukes her; but Diana is the
appeasable Goddess; Tony is the woman, and she loves him. The glorious
Goddess need not cut them adrift; they can show her a book of honest
pages.

Dacier could truthfully say he had worshipped, done knightly service to
the beloved woman, homage to the aureole encircling her. Those friends
of his, covertly congratulating him on her preference, doubtless thought
him more privileged than he was; but they did not know Diana; and they
were welcome, if they would only believe, to the knowledge that he was
at the feet of this most sovereign woman. He despised the particular
Satyr-world which, whatever the nature or station of the woman, crowns
the desecrator, and bestows the title of Fool on