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.