d then she uttered a melodious
contralto shout for someone named '_Makri!_' I can recall, as I repeat
the word, the name of that obscure and unknown boatman, the very timbre
of her voice, the poise of her form, and the firm flexure of her fingers
on mine. And for that moment, as we stood waiting and the boat came
slowly and silently toward us with the standing figure of the oarsman
lost in the higher fog, I had an extraordinary impression, clear and
diminutive as a vignette, that I loved her and that she, in some
mysterious fashion, could love me without jeopardizing her own destiny.
A folly, of course; but I insist it gave me an inkling, that brief
illumination, of the actual nature of love."

At this momentous declaration Mr. Spenlove suddenly relapsed into a
pause that became a silence, as though he were still under the
influence of that illumination of which he spoke, and were pondering it
to the extent of forgetting his audience altogether. And it was a
suspicion of this amiable idiosyncrasy which caused the surgeon to make
a remark. Mr. Spenlove gave a grunt of assent.

"Yes," he said. "You are right. But this is not a supreme secret. I can
only offer you the suggestion that what you call a love affair is really
only a sequence of innumerable small passions. Yes, for a moment, you
know, I saw them plainly enough--a procession of tiny, perfect things,
moments, gestures, glances, and silences each complete and utterly
beautiful in itself, preoccupied with its own perfection. Scientific?
Not at all. Intuition and nothing else. One did not indulge in science
with that magical girl holding one's hand. Science is only a sort of
decorous guesswork at the best, guesswork corroborated by facts. In the
presence of a woman like that, you know! At this distance of time, my
friends, I can tell you that this girl, the chance acquaintance of a
chance evening, imposed her personality upon me as the very genius of
the tender passion. Yet I had but that one rhythmical moment by which to
judge--and the boat, a long and elegantly carved affair of cedar wood
decorated with brass bulbs, slid softly alongside, a tiny lantern
glowing between the thwarts; like some perilous bark of destiny, and she
a charming, enigmatic spirit watching with gracious care my departure
for an alluring yet unknown shore.

"For that is what it was. I stepped into that long, narrow affair, with
its tall, gondola-like prow and absurd brass balls, and I left m