That day was to remain with him, in living memory, as a joy that was not to be forgotten unless he forgot his own identity. It was to become as essentially a part of him as the memory of a vision might be part of the life and religion of a saint. The view of the river shining among the branches, the fallen trees in the underbrush, the yellow sunlight, the green shadows, her face against the brown trunk of the tree, the warm surrender of her hand—the memory of these was to be about him in his future like thoughts of home in exile. They were to give to all women a subtle quality of wood-enchantment; as if they reminded him of nymphs and graces known in some forgotten, far-off golden land. And they were to make the smallest patch of grass and trees poetical to him, love-haunted, at once heart-gladdening and full of painful longings—even though it were only a green square in a great city, noisy with traffic and shabby with the dust from the worn pavements of thronged streets.
And as if he were conscious of the momentous influence of the hour—or perhaps as instinctively as the plant that turns itself to the ripening of the sunlight—he gave himself up to her, without any reserve of his secrets, returning to her the homage of all the dreams which she had inspired, the flowering of the past which she had suddenly made perfect. It marked the change in him from mere dreaming to aggressive idealism. He was no longer afraid of himself or of her, resolved that whatever he believed of her should be made true; and she heard him at first with shame and protestations, with pity, with tenderness, and at
