her dress to his lips. She rose with a cry of protest, urging him to his feet.
“I know now,” he said simply, “why men kneel to women.” While in her heart she thanked heaven for preserving her to that hour, the dreadful words invested her in yet another loneliness. She seemed to stand tall and alone, isolated for a moment from her solid surroundings, within a spiral of unconsuming radiance.
“No one ought to kneel to anyone,” she lied in pity, and moved out restlessly into the room. We are real. As others have been real. There is a sacred bond between us now, ratified by all human experience. But oh the cost and the demand. It was as if she were carrying in her hands something that could be kept safe only by a lifelong silence. Everything she did and said in future must hide the sacred trust. It gave a freedom; but not of speech or thought. It left the careless dreaming self behind. Only in ceaseless occupation could it hold its way. Its only confidant would be God. Holding to it, everything in life, even difficulties, would be transparent. But seen from the outside, by the world, an awful mysteriously persistent commonplace. It was not fair that men did not know the whole of this secret place and its compact. Why was God in league only with women?