He admired
her-he had told her why: because she was the most imaginative woman he
had known. It might very well have been true; for during those
months she had imagined a world of things that had no substance. She
had had a more wondrous vision of him, fed through charmed senses
and oh such a stirred fancy!-she had not read him right. A certain
combination of features had touched her, and in them she had seen
the most striking of figures. That he was poor and lonely and yet that
somehow he was noble-that was what had interested her and seemed to
give her opportunity. There had been an indefinable beauty about
him-in his situation, in his mind, in his face. She had felt at the
same time that he was helpless and ineffectual, but the feeling had
taken the form of a tenderness which was the very flower of respect.
He was like a sceptical voyager strolling on the beach while he waited
for the tide, looking seaward yet not putting to sea. It was in all
this she had found her occasion. She would launch his boat for him;
she would be his providence; it would be a good thing to love him. And
she had loved him, she had so anxiously and yet so ardently given
herself-a good deal for what she found in him, but a good deal also
for what she brought him and what might enrich the gift.
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