And in my treatment of
herself I acted as I did because I saw that, as yet, her passions
and her nature slumbered, just as the wine, unshaken, is steady
within the cup.
Now, in my present helpless condition, to merely wake and rouse
them, to distract and disturb her, and lift her out of her art, to
draw her half from her own life, before I could take her wholly into
my own, seemed a sacrilegious cruelty. And this was why, from the
commencement of our engagement, I had said to myself--On this one
condition only.
This was why, on the evening when I put the circlet of the
engagement ring over the delicate finger, I had not touched the lips
thanking me. I knew I could not kiss her coldly. These things depend
upon one's nature. Some men shake hands listlessly. I cannot. If I
take a friend's hand I grasp it warmly. How then, here, with those
passive lips under mine, could I prevent them from drawing in the
enthusiasm from my own? And this once done, I did not know how it
might stir in her, and break up her life and turn her aside from the
tranquil path of abstraction and occupation she was following now. I
am not saying that, as a rule, a woman waits for her lover's kiss to
arouse her. On the contrary, I am well aware that most women are
uncommonly wide-awake from their thirteenth year, and it is a very
old-fashioned and quite exploded idea to suppose that the springs of
their nature lie dormant until one particular individual unlocks
them.
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