He drew out his pipe, loaded it with tobacco, and began to smoke.
The bitterness of the weed was gone. It was delicious. He puffed
luxuriously. And then, suddenly, as he looked at the purplish bulwarks
of the forest, his mind swept back. For the first time since that night
many months ago he thought of the Woman--the Golden Goddess--without a
red-hot fire in his brain. He thought of her coolly. This new world was
already giving back to him a power of analysis, a perspective, a
healthier conception of truths and measurements. What a horrible blot
they had made in his life--that man and that woman! What a foul trick
they had played him! What filth they had wallowed in! And he--he had
thought her the most beautiful creature in the world, an angel, a thing
to be worshipped. He laughed, almost without sound, his teeth biting
hard on the stem of his pipe. And the world he was looking upon laughed;
the snow diamonds, lying thickly as dust, laughed; there was laughter in
the sun, the warmth of chuckling humour in those glowing walls of
forest, laughter in the blue sky above.
His hands gripped hard.
In this world he knew there could not be another woman such as she.
Here, in all this emptiness and glory, her shallow soul would have
shrieked in agony; she would have shrivelled up and died.
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