The Goddess Abides: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

her, a lit candle in his hand.
    “I knocked, you know, darling, but there was no answer. And so I came in, hoping to see you beautiful in sleep as I have been doing these last five minutes. Now I know what sleep does to your dear face. You were almost smiling,”
    He put the candlestick on the bedside table, he lay down beside her as though it were already habit and, slipping his right arm beneath her head, he lifted her to his shoulder.
    “Now then, we’re comfortable, aren’t we? And we are as we should be, man and woman lying side by side in mutual trust. I shan’t ask you to marry me, my love. It wouldn’t be fair to you. I’m too old.”
    “What if I ask you?” she inquired. Comfort, sweet and profound, flowed into her blood.
    “Ah, that would be a question,” he replied.
    But no, she thought, she would never ask it. Marriage? She had no wish for it. Marriage would make her think of Arnold. Let her explore this relationship with Edwin quite free of memories!
    Suddenly he threw back the covers and sat up to survey her. “What’s this lovely thing you have on, this gossamer garment, this silver cobweb?”
    She lay smiling in enjoyment of his pleasure. “You like it?”
    “Very much, but—”
    He broke off and she felt his hands dexterously slipping the lace from her shoulders, from her breasts, her waist and thighs, until the garment that had covered her lay in a soft heap at her feet.
    “Blessed be our bodies, for they are the means of love!” he whispered.
    She did not reply, choosing to allow him to lead where he would, watchful only for distaste in herself. But there was no distaste. Nothing she had ever known prepared her now for his grace, his delicacy, the sureness of his touch. The philosophy of love! The phrase sprang into her mind. This was more than, physical, whatever it was. Then he put aside the robe he wore and lay beside her again.
    “Now we know each other,” he said. “We can never be strange to each other from this hour on.”
    There in the night they lay in each other’s arms, passionate and passionless. The moon rose high and shone through the wide window and she saw his body, beautiful even in age, the shoulders straight, the chest smooth, the legs slender and strong. He had given his body respectful care, and was rewarded even now. And how many women had loved this body? Impossible that so powerful a beauty of mind and body had not combined often in the act of love! But she felt no jealousy. This was her hour, her night. And it was true that, knowing themselves as they were, they could never again be far apart.
    “Yes,” she said clearly and aloud.
    “Yes, what, my sweet?”
    “Yes, I love you.”
    He gave a long sigh and drew her against him. “I thank God,” he said. “Whom I have not seen, I thank. Once more, before the end, to love and be loved! What more can I ask!”
    With this he fell into light sleep. But she lay awake, still in his arms, awake and thinking of the strangeness, that she lay in Edwin’s arms, in this room, in his house. She was not in the least regretful. What he had said was true, it was right, but strange, nevertheless. And suddenly she forgot where she was, and fell to thinking instead of Jared Barnow. Would he ever come back again? And why should he come again, and indeed she did not care now whether he did or did not. In the moonlight Edwin’s profile was marble white, pure and perfect. She felt new reverence for the beauty of this body and the splendor of this mind. It was honorable to be chosen for love by this man, this famous man, visited even now by great men and women from everywhere in the world. And if her quiet love could add a day to his life, words to his thoughts, strength to his-frame, was not this, too, a sort of joy?
    …She returned to her mountain house the next day and waited for the weekend. Snow fell and continued to fall day and night until on the north side of the house it drifted almost to the eaves. Sam, bringing logs,