danger of playing prematurely for power to seat her beside him high:
while at the same time, children, perchance, and his hardening lawyer's
head are secretly Philistinizing the demagogue, blunting the fine edge
of his Radicalism, turning him into a slow-stepping Liberal, otherwise
your half-Conservative in his convictions. Can she think it much to have
married that drab-coloured unit? Power must be grasped....

His watch told him that Tresten was now beholding her, or just about to.
The stillness of the heavens was remarkable. The hour held breath. She
delayed her descent from her chamber. He saw how she touched at her
hair, more distinctly than he saw the lake before his eyes. He watched
her, and the growl of a coming roar from him rebuked her tricky
deliberateness. Deciding at last, she slips down the stairs like a
waterfall, and is in the room, erect, composed--if you do not lay ear
against her bosom. Tresten stares at her, owns she is worth a struggle.
Love does this, friend Tresten! Love, that stamps out prejudice and
bids inequality be smooth. Tresten stares and owns she is worth heavier
labours, worse than his friend has endured. Love does it! Love, that
hallows a stranger's claim to the flower of a proud garden: Love has
won her the freedom to suffer herself to be chosen by the stranger. What
matters which of them toiled to bring them to so sweet an end! It was
not either of them, but Love. By and by, after acting serenest innocent,
suddenly broken, she will be copious of sad confessions. That will be
in their secresy: in the close and boundless together of clasped hands.
Deep eyes, that give him in realms of light within light all that he
has dreamed of rapturousness and blessedness, you are threatened with
a blinding kiss if you look abashed:--if her voice shall dare repeat
another of those foolish self-reproaches, it shall be construed as a
petition for further kisses. Silence! he said to her, imagining that he
had been silent, and enjoying silence with a perfect quietude beyond
the trouble of a thought of her kisses and his happiness. His full heart
craved for the infinity of silence.

Another moment and he was counting to her the days, hours, minutes,
which had been the gulf of torture between then and now--the separation
and the reunion: he was voluble, living to speak, and a pause was only
for the drawing of most blissful breath.

His watch went slowly. She was beginning to drop her eyelids in front of