Chapter 16 - Page 2

fiercely, that he wondered if he was in the wrong and but following a
haunting, mocking dream.

"You are an epicure, Osmonde," his Grace of Marlborough said more than
once, for he had watched and studied him closely. "Not an anchorite but
an epicure."

"Yes," answered Osmonde, "perhaps 'tis that. Any man can love a score
of women--most men do--but there are few who can love but one, as I
shall, if--" and the words came slowly--"if I ever find her."

"You may not," remarked his Grace.

"I may not," said Osmonde, and he smiled his faint, grim smile.

He could not have sworn when he returned to the Continent that he had
found her absolutely at last. Her body he had found, but herself he had
not approached nearly enough to know. But this thing he realised, that
even in the mad stories he had heard, when they had been divested of
their madness, the chief figure in them had always stood out an honest,
strong, fair thing, dwarfed by no petty feminine weakness, nor follies,
nor spites. Rules she broke, decorums she defied, but in such manner
as hurt none but herself. She played no tricks and laid no plots for
vengeance, as she might well have done; she but went her daring,
lawless way, with her head up and her great eyes wide open; and 'twas
her fearless frankness and just, clear wit which moved him more than
aught else, since 'twas they which made him feel that 'twas not alone
her splendid body commanded love, but a spirit which might mate with a
strong man's and be companion to his own. His theories of womankind,
which were indeed curiously in advance of his age, were such as
demanded great things, and not alone demanded, but also gave them.

"A man and woman should not seem beings of a different race--the one
all strength, the other all weakness," was his thought. "They should
gaze into each other's eyes with honest, tender human passion, which is
surely a great thing, as nature made it. Each should know the other's
love, and strength, and honour may be trusted through death--or
life--themselves. 'Tis not a woman's love is won by pretty gallantries,
nor a man's by flattering weak surrender. Love grows from a greater
thing, and should be as compelling--even in the higher, finer thing
which thinks--as is the roar of the lion in the jungle to his mate, and
her glad cry which answers him."

And therefore, at last he had said to himself that this beauteous,
strong, wild thing surely might be she who would answer him one day,
and he held his thoughts of her in check no more, nor avoided the
speech he heard of her, and indeed, with adroitness which never
betrayed itself through his reserve of bearing, at times