She was not Violet
Grey, she was not Mrs. Alsager, she was not any woman he had seen
upon earth, nor was it any masquerade of friendship or of penitence.
Yet she was more familiar to him than the women he had known best,
and she was ineffably beautiful and consoling. She filled the poor
room with her presence, the effect of which was as soothing as some
odour of incense. She was as quiet as an affectionate sister, and
there was no surprise in her being there. Nothing more real had ever
befallen him, and nothing, somehow, more reassuring. He felt her
hand rest upon his own, and all his senses seemed to open to her
message. She struck him, in the strangest way, both as his creation
and as his inspirer, and she gave him the happiest consciousness of
success. If she was so charming, in the red firelight, in her vague,
clear-coloured garments, it was because he had made her so, and yet
if the weight seemed lifted from his spirit it was because she drew
it away. When she bent her deep eyes upon him they seemed to speak
of safety and freedom and to make a green garden of the future.
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