me; and I did not then understand that it came from my steady and sustained efforts to ignore what any eyes could not choose but see — this young girl’s beauty — yes, despite her sorry mien and her rags — a beauty that was fashioned to trouble men; and which was steadily invading my senses whether I would or no.

Walking along the road and springing over the puddles, I thought to myself that it was small wonder such a wench was pestered in a common soldier’s camp. For she had about her everything to allure the grosser class — a something — indescribable perhaps — but which even such a man as I had become unwillingly aware of. And I must have been very conscious of it, for it made me restless and vaguely ashamed that I should condescend so far as even to notice it.