Demos Part 106

'Why do you say that, as if you were glad of it?'

'Glad? I speak the words that come to my tongue. I say aloud to you what I have been repeating again and again to myself. It is mere despair.'

She drew one step nearer to him.

'You disregard those differences which you say are only of the intellect, and still love me. Can I not do the same? There _was_ a distance between us, and my ends were other than yours. That is the past; the present is mine to make myself what you would have me. I have no law but your desire--so much I love you.'

How easily said after all! And when he searched her face with eyes on fire with their joy, when he drew her to his heart in pa.s.sionate triumph, the untruth of years fell from her like a veil, and she had achieved her womanhood.