Athalie - Page 159/222

In that fierce flash of candour,--of guiltless passion, she had

revealed herself. Never, until that moment, had he supposed himself so

absolutely dominant, invested with such power for good or evil. That

he could sway her one way or the other through her pure loyalty,

devotion, and sympathy he had not understood.

To do him justice he desired no such responsibility. He had meant to

be honest and generous and unselfish even when the outlook seemed most

hopeless,--when he was convinced that he had no chance of freedom.

But a man with the girl he loves in his arms might as well set a net

to catch the wind as to set boundaries to his desires. Perhaps he

could not so ardently have desired his freedom to marry her had he not

as ardently desired her love.

Love he had of her, but it was an affection utterly innocent of

passion. He knew it; she realised it; realised too that the capacity

for passion was in her. And had asked him not awaken her to it,

instinctively recoiling from it. Generous, unsullied, proudly

ignorant, she desired to remain so. Yet knew her peril; and candidly

revealed it to him in the most honest appeal ever made to him.

For if the girl herself suspected and dreaded whither her loyalty and

deep devotion to him might lead her, he had realised very suddenly

what his leadership meant in such a companionship.

Now it sobered him, awed him,--and chilled him a trifle.

Himself, his own love for her, his own passion he could control and in

a measure subdue. But, once awakened, could he control such an ally as

she might be to his own lesser, impatient and hot-headed self?

Where her disposition was to deny, he could still fetter self and

acquiesce. But he began to understand that half his strength lay in

her unwillingness; half of their safety in her inexperience, her

undisturbed tranquillity, her aloofness from physical emotion and her

ignorance of the mastery of the lesser passions.

The girl had builded wholesomely and wisely for herself. Instinct had

led her truly and well as far as that tangled moment in her life.

Instinct still would lead her safely if she were let alone,--instinct

and the intelligence she herself had developed. For the ethical view

of the question remained only as a vague memory of precepts mechanical

and meaningless to a healthy child. She had lost her mother too early

to have understood the casual morals so gently inculcated. And nobody

else had told her anything.

Also intelligence is often a foe to instinct. She might, with little

persuasion accept an unconventional view of life; with a little

emotional awakening she might more easily still be persuaded to a

logic builded on false foundations. Add to these her ardent devotion

to this man, and her deep and tender concern lest he be unhappy, and

Athalie's chances for remaining her own mistress were slim enough.