The Woman, the Man, and the Monster
He liked these speculative moods in her. They seemed to lift her into regions that no other woman of his acquaintance had ever trodden. Behind the mocking laughter of her eyes was a more serious purpose. She was a dreamer of strange and wonderful dreams, and in a way he felt that he was infinitely little. Cleopatra, Helen, Mary Stuart, must have possessed some grace beyond that of the merely beautiful body. Many women have beautiful bodies, but men do not destroy worlds for them.
It was with a chastened spirit, with a feel- ing almost of awe, that he took her hand and kissed it. Perhaps she realised something of what was running in his mind, for with an ex- quisitely tender movement she flung an arm round his neck and drew his face to her breast.
“Helen could not have loved Paris more than Andromeda loves Perseus,” she whis- pered.
“Nor could Paris have loved Helen so much as Perseus loves Andromeda.”
“Then why should we envy even the gods?”
“I don’t,” he said. “I rather think the gods
must envy us.”
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