Though souls may rush together, if body cannot endure
body, happiness is reared on sand and the structure will be ever
unstable and tottery. Next, Corliss had the physical potency of the
hero without the grossness of the brute. His muscular development was
more qualitative than quantitative, and it is the qualitative
development which gives rise to beauty of form. A giant need not be
proportioned in the mould; nor a thew be symmetrical to be massive.
And finally,--none the less necessary but still finally,--Vance Corliss
was neither spiritually dead nor decadent. He affected her as fresh
and wholesome and strong, as reared above the soil but not scorning the
soil. Of course, none of this she reasoned out otherwise than by
subconscious processes. Her conclusions were feelings, not thoughts.
Though they quarrelled and disagreed on innumerable things, deep down,
underlying all, there was a permanent unity. She liked him for a
certain stern soberness that was his, and for his saving grace of
humor. Seriousness and banter were not incompatible. She liked him
for his gallantry, made to work with and not for display. She liked
the spirit of his offer at Happy Camp, when he proposed giving her an
Indian guide and passage-money back to the United States. He could
_do_ as well as talk. She liked him for his outlook, for his innate
liberality, which she felt to be there, somehow, no matter that often
he was narrow of expression.
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