Making no attempt this time to restrain his thoughts, he discovered, as he gave himself up to his mental disloyalty, a curious emotional phenomenon. He discovered that the peculiar glamour which had always hovered for him like a diaphanous cloud round the impersonal idea of girlhood, had concentrated itself upon the image of Christie. He plunged into a very strange aspect of his feelings, as he stood on those cobblestones and stared at those dark shadows. The thought of Gerda’s warmth gave him a voluptuous thrill, direct, earthy, full of honest and natural desire. But he recognized now that there hovered over the personality of this other girl something more subtle than this⁠—nothing less, in fact, than that evasive aura of mysterious girlishness⁠—the platonic idea, so to speak, of the mystery of all young girls, which was to him the most magical thing in the whole world. What had drawn him from the beginning to Gerda had been her wonderful beauty, and after that her original personality, her childish character. He could see Gerda’s face now, at this moment, before him⁠—he could catch the tones of her voice. He could feel how lovely she was, as he held her and caressed her. Christie’s face, on the contrary, was all vague in his memory; her voice was vague; the touch of her hand was vague.