She was like water in a desert or sunlight to a man who comes up from a mine.

He had found her again and he thanked whatever god he recognized for that, but he was forced to realize from her imperturbable coolness and unaffected ease that she was farther away from him than ever.

To one of his temperament and schooling this was hard to bear with any sort of self-control.

The fact that he wanted her of all the creatures on earth, that she, alone among women, had touched the fuse of his desire, and that, knowing this, she could sit there a few inches from his lips and put a hundred miles between them, maddened him, from whom nothing hitherto had been impossible.
"Have I got to begin all over again ?" he asked, with a sort of petulance.
"Begin what, Gilbert ?" There was great satisfaction in playing with one who thought that he had only to touch a bell to bring the moon and the sun and the stars to his bidding.
"Good God," he cried out.

"You're like wet sand on which a man expects to find yesterday's footmarks.