His lifelong fear of woman had originated out of
non-understanding and had also prevented him from reaching any
understanding. Dede on horseback, Dede gathering poppies on a
summer hillside, Dede taking down dictation in her swift
shorthand strokes--all this was comprehensible to him. But he
did not know the Dede who so quickly changed from mood to mood,
the Dede who refused steadfastly to ride with him and then
suddenly consented, the Dede in whose eyes the golden glow
forever waxed and waned and whispered hints and messages that
were not for his ears. In all such things he saw the glimmering
profundities of sex, acknowledged their lure, and accepted them
as incomprehensible.
There was another side of her, too, of which he was consciously
ignorant. She knew the books, was possessed of that mysterious
and awful thing called "culture." And yet, what continually
surprised him was that this culture was never obtruded on their
intercourse. She did not talk books, nor art, nor similar
folderols. Homely minded as he was himself, he found her almost
equally homely minded. She liked the simple and the
out-of-doors, the horses and the hills, the sunlight and the
flowers.
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