You're letting down your spiritual
caste. You and I--we've been along lower paths. There wasn't really any
disgust in it then, because we were adventuring, finding each other. But
if we go on the lower paths now we're doing a thing that's damnable. All
my life I've waited for the wonder that should come round the corner. So
have you. And here it is, for both of us--"
"How many love affairs did you tell me you had had?" she broke in, in a
queerly casual voice.
"You're not going to be conventionally horrified, are you?"
"No. But I think you're muddled. I think this is satiety, you know."
"It's you who are muddled, Marcella. This is satisfaction, not satiety.
I know I've got all I need in you. Body, mind and spirit. Most of all,
spirit--and courage."
She dropped on to the crackling ground. He looked down at her.
"I don't believe you know anything at all about control, Professor
Kraill," she said very quietly, so quietly that he dropped down beside
her to listen as she kept her face averted. "Do you remember, once, you
said 'Women have no inhibitions'?"
"I was young. And even now, it's true--" he cried.
"I'm a woman. But I've never deliberately wallowed--as you seem to have
done. Once or twice, perhaps--I was sort of weak, or perhaps hopeful. I
thought it might be very beautiful--"
"You were seeking, as I was," he said, suddenly gentle.
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