Page:Dr Adriaan (1918).djvu/156

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150
DR. ADRIAAN

and they had lost each other, Addie and Mathilde; and they would find each other again in a rebirth of desire, when Addie reflected:

"What a beautiful, healthy woman she is! And we have to be healthy in our bodies and normal in our longings if we would be healthy of soul, in the life of our bodies and our physical being."

On the evening after the excursion on the ice, they found each other again. The wind had lashed their blood to a warm glow, the exercise had sent it coursing through their veins. Love was reborn of their embrace until drowsiness overtook them. And Mathilde thought that she had found him again and Addie thought that he had found her again, because their kisses had sealed one to the other, because their arms had clasped one to the other, but they lost each other again at once, as ever and always, because Mathilde just did not know him in his two-sided soul and he never knew things for himself, whatever he might know for others, in the clarity of his knowledge; in any of the manifestations of the instinctive knowledge which he knew silently and blissfully in his soul's soul: the hidden spark, from which treasure shone.

Mathilde sat down quietly in a corner, sitting a little way from the others, to catch the light of a lamp on her book; and Addie remained for only a moment, saying that he had work to do. And, as he went out of the door, there was a sudden draught, so that the lamps flickered and smoked and nearly went out.

"There's something open," said Constance. "Where can that wind come from?"

"I'll look," said Addie, closing the door.

"You see," said Gerdy, pursing up her mouth and turning to Aunt Constance, "you see it's not always my fault when there's a draught."