MY LADY OF THE BREECHES
full knowledge. Lionel felt within himself
a tenacious longing,
a perpetual desire. His lack of physical courage was counter-
balanced by his intellectual daring; he meant to collar the
Angel, and to re-enter the Paradise of that first victim of
womanhood, Adam of the bent shoulders, Adam of the foolish
resignation to the self-preserving decree of the frightened
divinities.
His errors of tactics were caused by the fact that he hoped
to test the apple without the help of Woman. Often enough,
Lionel Tabard unwittingly repelled the advances of many a
feminine would-be initiator.
VIi*
THE LOVER
But he was not prompted by the wisdom of a Master; merely
by cowardice and self-consciousness. He could not command
love and desires; the angels of love and desires therefore
digged a deep trap before his feet...
Tabard was sitting in the verandah. The men had gone to
bed, the women also. He lighted his pipe, the use of which
a life in the open air had permitted his lungs to tolerate. He
was thinking, pondering, meditating upon the most important
matter in life, the personal one. He looked at his hands,
white, well shaped, well kept, but the left retaining a stiffer
and curved appearance. Lionel felt ashamed of himself. He
took his watch in his hand and looked at the time of night.
* For reasons which are obvious to anyone who has mixed the Gluten of the
White Eagle with the Red Powder, or accomplished the Third Projection, the
order of the Tarot trumps cannot any longer be preserved. Nor will their
number here exceed seven,
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