Page:The woman, the man, and the monster (IA womanmanmonster00dawe).pdf/235

 “But not so sweet as you, her daughter,” he whispered.

“Yes, I am a daughter of Earth,” she said, “loved of her, loving her, nourished at her breast, into which I shall presently sink to sleep. It will be a long sleep, Perseus, but she is beautiful and gracious, and will be kind.

How warm the sun is, how de- - liciously warm! It seems to lave my limbs, to permeate me, as it were, and draw the sweetness out of the earth beneath. I wonder why lying in the grass makes one feel so affectionate? . . . To-day clothes seem a hideous outrage on nature. One should be naked to the sun and the wind and the soft caresses of the clover. . . . I love to lie like this, out in the open. It seems to take one back to the beginning of things, the days that knew not the sin and the shame of living. Oh, yes, ’m a pagan, a frank, unregenerate pagan. When I was a child I used to run barefooted. Have you ever run barefooted, Perseus?”

“Never—except by the sea.”

“Ah, but that’s convention again. Shall we?” She looked up at him, a daring challenge in her eyes.