Astonished, I remained standing there. Demian looked magnificent; his broad chest, the firm manly head, the uplifted arms were strong and sturdy. The movements came from the hips, the shoulders, the joints of the arm, as easily as if they bubbled out of a spring of strength.
“Demian!” I called. “What are you doing there?”
He laughed gaily.
“I am exercising. I have promised to box with the little Jap; the fellow is as agile as a cat, and naturally just as sly. But he won’t be able to manage me. I owe him just one little beating.”
He drew on shirt and coat.
“You have already seen mother?” he asked.
“Yes, Demian, what a marvellous mother you have! Mother Eve! The name suits her perfectly; she is like the mother of all being.”
He gazed for an instant musingly in my face.
“You know her name already? You ought to be proud, young friend. You are the only one to whom she has said it in the first hour’s acquaintance.”
From this day on I went in and out of the house like a son and a brother, but also like a lover. When I closed the gate behind