Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/128

 and point before it could be of use? I tried to say this to myself and to make a barrier of the knowledge. But was it all the truth? Remembering her eyes and tones, her words and hesitations, I could not accept it for the whole truth. There was more, what more I knew no. Even if there had been no more I was falling so deep into the gulf of passion that it crossed my mind to take while I gave; and, if I were to be used, to exact my hire. In a tumult of these thoughts, embracing now what in the next moment I rejected, revolting in a sudden fear from the plan which just before seemed so attractive, I passed the evening and the night. For I had taken up that mixed heritage of good and evil, of pain and power, that goes by the name of manhood; and when a new heir enters on his inheritance there is a time before he can order it.