I felt her hands on my arms. She was stroking my hair again, drawing it back from my forehead.

“I understand you,” she said, “even though you’re wrong.”

I gave a little laugh as I looked up at her. I took a napkin from our little picnic and I wiped my nose and my eyes.

“But I haven’t shaken your faith, have I?”

“No,” she said. And this time her smile was different, more warm and more truly radiant. “You’ve confirmed it,” she said in a whisper. “How very strange you are, and how miraculous that you came to me. I can almost believe your way is right for you. Who else could be you? No one.”

I sat back, and drank a little sip of wine. It was now warm from the fire, but still it tasted good, sending a ripple of pleasure through my sluggish limbs. I drank some more of it. I set down the glass and looked at her.

“I want to ask you a question,” I said. “Answer me from your heart. If I win my battle—if I regain my body—do you want me to come to you? Do you want me to show you that I’ve been telling the truth? Think carefully before you answer.

“I want to do it. I really do. But I’m not sure that it’s the best thing for you. Yours is almost a perfect life. Our little carnal episode couldn’t possibly turn you away from it. I was right—wasn’t I?—in what I said before. You know now that erotic pleasure really isn’t important to you, and you’re going to return to your work in the jungle very soon, if not immediately.”

“That’s true,” she said. “But there’s something else you should know, also. There was a moment this morning when I thought I could throw away everything—just to be with you.”

“No, not you, Gretchen.”

“Yes, me. I could feel it sweeping me away, the way the music once did. And if you were to say ‘Come with me,’ even now, I might go. If this world of yours really existed … ” She broke off with another little shrug, tossing her hair a little and then smoothing it back behind her shoulder. “The meaning of chastity is not to fall in love,” she said, her focus sharpening as she looked at me. “I could fall in love with you. I know I could.”

She broke off, and then said in a low, troubled voice, “You could become my god. I know that’s true.”

This frightened me, yet I felt at once a shameless pleasure and satisfaction, a sad pride. I tried not to yield to the feeling of slow physical excitement. After all, she didn’t know what she was saying. She couldn’t know. But there was something powerfully convincing in her voice and in her manner.

“I’m going back,” she said in the same voice, full of certitude and humility. “I’ll probably leave within a matter of days. But yes, if you win this battle, if you recover your old form—for the love of God, come to me. I want to … I want to know!”