Words were denied me; if I advanced I could but clasp her to my heart in silence; and all that was sane in me, all that was still unconquered, revolted against the thought of such an accost.

So we stood for a second, all our life in our eyes, exchanging salvos of attraction and yet each resisting; and then, with a great effort of the will, and conscious at the same time of a sudden bitterness of disappointment, I turned and went away in the same silence.
What power lay upon me that I could not speak?
And she, why was she also silent?
Why did she draw away before me dumbly, with fascinated eyes?
Was this love?
or was it a mere brute attraction, mindless and inevitable, like that of the magnet for the steel?
We had never spoken, we were wholly strangers: and yet an influence, strong as the grasp of a giant, swept us silently together.

On my side, it filled me with impatience; and yet I was sure that she was worthy; I had seen her books, read her verses, and thus, in a sense, divined the soul of my mistress.
But on her side, it struck me almost cold.

Of me, she knew nothing but my bodily favour; she was drawn to me as stones fall to the earth; the laws that rule the earth conducted her, unconsenting, to my arms; and I drew back at the thought of such a bridal, and began to be jealous for myself.

It was not thus that I desired to be loved.