This conversation meant more to them than the words implied. It impressed him as a new beauty in her that she was queenly. This cast a new glory over all the rest.
The queenliness did not consist in desire to rule. It was purely self-defence; but the loftiest. Her whole nature was concentrated in it, luminously. "Touch me not!" said eyes, voice, bearing. There was preparedness, undoubtedly, if need were, for the martyr's crown. She became much greater--but also more helpless. Such as she look too high and fall the first step they take. And great is generally their fall.
Frans gazed at her; he forgot to answer, forgot what she had said. He seemed to hear a voice calling: "Protect her!" Chivalry entered into his love, and issued its high behests.
Mary saw him withdraw himself from their conversation; but this did not stop her; the subject was too absorbing. When he came back to it again he heard her divulging her inmost thoughts, undoubtedly with no idea that she was doing so. She told what she had thought ever since she could think on such subjects at all. It came as naturally to her to do so as to lift her dress where the road was dirty, or to swim when she could no longer keep her footing.--Individuality must be preserved, must grow, be neither curbed nor soiled. With this she began, with this she ended. But she was all the time conscious of a curious attraction towards Frans which led her to speak out. It was so long since they had been together. She did not know that the person who can draw forth our thoughts is, in the nature of things, a person who has power over us. She only felt that she was obliged to speak--and to keep control over herself. A sweet feeling, which she experienced for the first time.
The conversation changed into talk which became ever more intimate, and lost itself at last in a silence of looks and long-drawn breaths. Alice had gone to her model. They became confused when they discovered that they were alone. They stopped talking and looked away from each other.
After short visits to one and another of the many works of art in the studio, their attention concentrated itself on a faun without arms. It stood laughing at them. They talked about this fragment of antique sculpture merely that there might not be silence. Where had it been found? To what age did it belong? It must surely have been an animal. They spoke in subdued tones, with caressing voices, and unsteady eyes. Nor were their feet steadier. They felt themselves lighter than before, as if they were in higher air. And it seemed to them as if their thoughts lay bare, and they themselves were transparent.