Her hair was nothing
more than a warm colored mist without form or outline. The sloe-
brown of her little eyes and the flush of her cheek were mere
inferences--like the faintest stars that are never visible when
looked at directly; and it seemed to him that there was disengaged
from her something for which there was no name; something that
appealed to a mysterious sixth sense--a sense that only stirred at
such quiet moments as this; something that was now a dim, sweet
radiance, now a faint aroma, and now again a mere essence, an
influence, an impression--nothing more. It seemed to him as if
her sweet, clean purity and womanliness took a form of its own
which his accustomed senses were too gross to perceive. Only a
certain vague tenderness in him went out to meet and receive this
impalpable presence; a tenderness not for her only, but for all
the good things of the world. Often he had experienced the same
feeling when listening to music. Her sweetness, her goodness,
appealed to what he guessed must be the noblest in him. And she
was only nineteen. Suddenly his heart swelled, the ache came to
his throat and the smart to his eyes.
"Blixy," he said, just above a whisper; "Blixy, wish I was a
better sort of chap."
"That's the beginning of being better, isn't it, Condy?" she
answered, turning toward him, her chin on her hand.
"It does seem a pity," he went on, "that when you WANT to do the
right, straight thing, and be clean and fine, that you can't just
BE it, and have it over with.
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