y to
understand?"

"Yes."

All her life Priscilla was to look back on that moment as the first
perfect one of her life. She felt no shame in taking it. It belonged to
her, and she meant to prove herself to him.

"I feel as if there were a new heaven and a new earth, Priscilla, and
that you and I had just been created--the first man, the first woman.
Dear heart, rest your head, so, against my knee." He was sitting above
her. "Your hair holds all the glory of the sunlight, and how white and
warm your throat is!" His fingers touched it reverently. "Let us cling
to this one hour that has given us to each other. Are you happy?"

"It means--something more than that--this moment----" Priscilla spoke as
if held by a dream.

"You are--content?"

"Yes. That is it. I am--content. I shall never ask for anything more,
anything better. I have everything--the world and--and God, has to give."

"My darling! Now let me tell you. Years ago I came here after a hard
struggle for health. I had never had childhood or boyhood, in the real
sense; but I was well at last! I saw that I was going to have a man's
life, with all that that means, and for months the emotions and cravings,
that generally go to the years of making a child and boy, had been
crowding and pushing me to a sense of having been defrauded, and I meant
to have my turn at last: my joy and pleasure. It seemed just and right to
me that I should taste and revel in all that I had been deprived of. I
had even been deprived of the longing, had not even had the glory of
conquest. I had been such a meaningless creature, I thought I could
afford even to be selfish. I shrank from being _different_--I had been
forced to in the past--but I meant to make up for lost time and take my
place among my fellows.

"One morning, just such a morning as this, I found myself alone--here!
Then I had it out with myself. More distinctly than anything had ever
come to me before I realized that life meant one thing, and one thing
only: the biggest fight or the meanest defeat! I knew that every passion
that burned and flayed me was a warhorse that, if controlled, would carry
me safely through the battle; if succumbed to, would trample me under its
relentless feet. This I knew with my brain, while tradition, inclination,
and longing called me--fool! Well, I was given strength to follow my
head; but every year has been a struggle. I found that to be different
meant contempt often, misunderstanding al