And the more he had once doubted the more he now believed.

Yes, she would be great--she would make her way into that city of the mind, in which he himself had made his dwelling-place; she, too, would enter upon the world's vast inheritance of knowledge.

She would become, if only her physical frame proved equal to the demands upon it, one of that little band of interpreters, of ministers of the idea, by whom the intellectual life of a society is fed and quickened.

Was he so lost in his own selfish covetous need as not to rejoice?
Oh, but she was a woman, she was beautiful, and he loved her! Do what he would, all ideal and impersonal considerations fell utterly away from him.

Day by day he knew more of his own heart; day by day the philosopher grew weaker in him, and the man's claim fiercer.