Looking at her lying there, he thought what an appalling risk these lovers of “happiness” take, when they burn their ships and trust their lives to the caprice of men.

As he contemplated the loveliness of her figure, it struck him as infinitely pathetic that even beauty such as hers should be so dependent on the sexual humours of this man or that man for its adequate appreciation.

Beauty like that, he thought, as he looked at her, ought to endow its possessor with superhuman happiness, as in the old legends, when the immortal gods made love to the daughters of men. There was a cruel irony in the fact that he of all men had been singled out to possess this beauty⁠—he whose heart of hearts had been given to a different being!

And as he pondered on all this it struck him as strange that such rare loveliness should not protect her, like silver armour, against the shocks and outrages of life. Beauty as unusual as this was a high gift, like a poet’s genius, and ought to have the power of protecting a girl’s heart from the cruel inconstancies of love.