, I dreamt last night she was half a
woman, half a tree, and her hair was like a dead yewbough, which is as
you know of a brown burnt-out colour, suitable to the popular conception
of widows. She stood, and whatever turning you took, you struck back on
her. Whether my widow, I can't say: she must first be my wife. Oh, for
tomorrow!'

'What sort of evening is it?' said the baroness.

'A Mont Blanc evening: I saw him as I came along,' Alvan replied, and
seized his hat to be out to look on the sovereign mountain again. They
touched hands. He promised to call in the forenoon next day.

'Be cool,' she counselled him.

'Oh!' He flung back his head, making light of the crisis. 'After all,
it's only a girl. But, you know, what I set myself to win!... The
thing's too small--I have been at such pains about it that I should be
ridiculous if I allowed myself to be beaten. There is no other reason
for the trouble we 're at, except that, as I have said a thousand times,
she suits me. No man can be cooler than I.'

'Keep so,' said the baroness.

He walked to where the strenuous blue lake, finding outlet, propels
a shoulder, like a bright-muscled athlete in action, and makes the
Rhone-stream. There he stood for an hour, disfevered by the limpid
liquid tumult, inspirited by the glancing volumes of a force that knows
no abatement, and is the skiey Alps behind, the great historic citied
plains ahead.

His meditation ended with a resolution half in the form of a prayer (to
mixed deities undefined) never to ask for a small thing any more if this
one were granted him!

He had won it, of course, having brought all his powers to bear on the
task; and he rejoiced in winning it: his heart leapt, his imagination
spun radiant webs of colour: but he was a little ashamed of his
frenzies, though he did not distinctly recall them; he fancied he had
made some noise, loud or not, because his intentions were so pure
that it was infamous to thwart them. At a certain age honest men made
sacrifice of their liberty to society, and he had been ready to perform
the duty of husbanding a woman. A man should have a wife and rear
children, not to be forgotten in the land, and to help mankind by
transmitting to future times qualities he has proved priceless:
he thought of the children, and yearned to the generations of men
physically and morally through them.

This was his apology to the world for his distantly-recollected excesses
of temper.

Was she