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London, Jack

"The Sea-Wolf"


? ? ? ? And so I gazed upon Maud's light-brown hair, and loved it, and learned more of love than all the poets and singers had taught me with all their songs and sonnets. She flung it back with a sudden adroit movement, and her face emerged, smiling.


? ? ? ? 'Why don't women wear their hair down always?' I asked. 'It is so much more beautiful.'


? ? ? ? 'If it didn't tangle so dreadfully,' she laughed. 'There! I've lost one of my precious hairpins!'


? ? ? ? I neglected the boat and had the sail spilling the wind again and again, such was my delight in following her every movement as she searched through the blankets for the pin. I was surprised, and joyfully, that she was so much the woman, and the display of each trait and mannerism that was characteristically feminine gave me keener joy. For I had been elevating her too highly in my concepts of her, removing her too far from the plane of the human and too far from me. I had been making of her a creature goddess-like and unapproachable. So I hailed with delight the little traits that proclaimed her only woman after all, such as the toss of the head which flung back the cloud of hair, and the search for the pin.


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