She met him at the door herself, and her womans eyes took in immediately the creased trousers and the certain slight but indefinable change in him for the better. Also, she was struck by his face. It was almost violent, this health of his, and it seemed to rush out of him and at her in waves of force. She felt the urge again of the desire to lean toward him for warmth, and marvelled again at the effect his presence produced upon her. And he, in turn, knew again the swimming sensation of bliss when he felt the contact of her hand in greeting. The difference between them lay in that she was cool and self-possessed while his face flushed to the roots of the hair. He stumbled with his old awkwardness after her, and his shoulders swung and lurched perilously.
Once they were seated in the living-room, he began to get on easily more easily by far than he had expected. She made it easy for him; and the gracious spirit with which she did it made him love her more madly than ever. They talked first of the borrowed books, of the Swinburne he was devoted to, and of the Browning he did not understand; and she led the conversation on from subject to subject, while she pondered the problem of how she could be of help to him. She had thought of this often since their first meeting. She wanted to help him. He made a call upon her pity and tenderness that no one had ever made before, and the pity was not so much derogatory of him as maternal in her. Her pity could not be of the common sort, when the man who drew it was so much man as to shock her with maidenly fears and set her mind and pulse thrilling with strange thoughts and feelings. The old fascination of his neck was there, and there was sweetness in the thought of laying her hands upon it. It seemed still a wanton impulse, but she had grown more used to it. She did not dream that in such guise new-born love would epitomize itself. Nor did she dream that the feeling he excited in her was love. She thought she was merely interested in him as an unusual type possessing various potential excellencies, and she even felt philanthropic about it.
She did not know she desired him; but with him it was different. He knew that he loved her, and he desired her as he had never before desired anything in his life. He had loved poetry for beautys sake; but since he met her the gates to the vast field of love-poetry had been opened wide. She had given him understanding even more than Bulfinch and Gayley. There was a line that a week before he would not have favored with a second thoughtGods own mad lover dying on a kiss; but now it was ever insistent in his mind. He marvelled at the wonder of it and the truth; and as he gazed upon her he knew that he could die gladly upon a kiss. He felt himself Gods own mad lover, and no accolade of knighthood could have given him greater pride. And at last he knew the meaning of life and why he had been born.
As he gazed at her and listened, his thoughts grew daring. He reviewed all the wild delight of the pressure of her hand in his at the door, and longed for it again. His gaze wandered often toward her lips, and he yearned for them hungrily. But there was nothing gross or earthly about this yearning. It gave him exquisite delight to watch every movement and play of those lips as they enunciated the words she spoke; yet they were not ordinary lips such as all men and women had. Their substance was not mere human clay. They were lips of pure spirit, and his desire for them seemed absolutely different from the desire that had led him to other womens lips. He could kiss her lips, rest his own physical lips upon them, but it would be with the lofty and awful fervor with which one would kiss the robe of God. He was not conscious of this transvaluation of values that had taken place in him, and was unaware that the light that shone in his eyes when he looked at her was quite the same light that shines in all mens eyes when the desire of love is upon them. He did not dream how ardent and masculine his gaze was, nor that the warm flame of it was affecting the alchemy of her spirit. Her penetrative virginity exalted and disguised his own emotions, elevating his thoughts to a star-cool chastity, and he would have been startled to learn that there was that shining out of his eyes, like warm waves, that flowed through her and kindled a kindred warmth. She was subtly perturbed by it, and more than once, though she knew not why, it disrupted her train of thought with its delicious intrusion and compelled her to grope for the remainder of ideas partly uttered. Speech was always easy with her, and these interruptions would have puzzled her had she not decided that it was because he was a remarkable type. She was very sensitive to impressions, and it was not strange, after all, that this aura of a traveller from another world should so affect her.
The problem in the background of her consciousness was how to help him, and she turned the conversation in that direction; but it was Martin who came to the point first.
I wonder if I can get some advice from you, he began, and received an acquiescence of willingness that made his heart bound. You remember the other time I was here I said I couldnt talk about books an things because I didnt know how? Well, Ive ben doin a lot of thinkin ever since. Ive ben to the library a whole lot, but most of the books Ive tackled have ben over my head. Mebbe Id better begin at the beginnin. I aint never had no advantages. Ive worked pretty hard ever since I was a kid, an since Ive ben to the library, lookin with new eyes at books an lookin at new books, too Ive just about concluded that I aint ben reading the right kind. You know the books you find in cattle-camps an focsls aint the same youve got in this house, for instance. Well, thats the sort of readin matter Ive ben accustomed to. And yet an I aint just makin a brag of it Ive ben different from the people Ive herded with. Not that Im any better than the sailors an cow-punchers I travelled with, I was cow-punchin for a short time, you know, but I always liked books, read everything I could lay hands on, anwell, I guess I think differently from most of em.
Now, to come to what Im drivin at. I was never inside a house like this. When I come a week ago, an saw all this, an you, an your mother, an brothers, an everything well, I liked it. Id heard about such things an read about such things in some of the books, an when I looked around at your house, why, the books come true. But the thing Im after is I liked it. I wanted it. I want it now. I want to breathe air like you get in this house air that is filled with books, and pictures, and beautiful things, where people talk in low voices an are clean, an their thoughts are clean. The air I always breathed was mixed up with grub an house-rent an scrappin an booze an thats all they talked about, too. Why, when you was crossin the room to kiss your mother, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen. Ive seen a whole lot of life, an somehow Ive seen a whole lot more of it than most of them that was with me. I like to see, an I want to see more, an I want to see it different.
But I aint got to the point yet. Here it is. I want to make my way to the kind of life you have in this house. Theres more in life than booze, an hard work, an knockin about. Now, how am I goin to get it? Where do I take hold an begin? Im willin to work my passage, you know, an I can make most men sick when it comes to hard work. Once I get started, Ill work night an day. Mebbe you think its funny, me askin you about all this. I know youre the last person in the world I ought to ask, but I dont know anybody else I could ask unless its Arthur. Mebbe I ought to ask him. If I was