Beatrice, like all tropical things, loved this time; basked in the glow of tapers; hugged her own warm sweetness in the confidence of a sanctuary for ever besieged by, and for ever impervious to, the forces of cold and gloom. To fancy herself the desired of night, unattainable through all its storming, was a commanding ecstasy. She liked to hear the hail on the roof, trampling and threshing for an opening, and flinging away baffled. The muffled slam of the thunder was her lullaby; while the candles shivered in it, she closed her eyes and dreamed. The thought of wrenched clouds, of crying human shapes, of torn beasts and birds sobbing and circling without the closed curtains of her shrine, served her imagination like a hymn. She measured her content against the strength of such hopeless appeals, like a very nun of incontinence, shut from the rigour of the world within the scented oratory of her own worship. She was Venus Anno Domini, the Paphian goddess yet undethroned, and yet justified of her influence over man and Nature. ’_About her carven palace walls a thousand blossoming lilies brake;_ _Within, a thousand years of love had wrought, for utter beauty’s sake,_ _Triumphs of art for her blue eyes, and for her feet rich stainèd floors,_ _And ever in her ears sweet moan of music down dim corridors?_ Agapemone was her temple, and its inmost chamber her shrine. Here, under stained glass windows, ran a frieze in relievo of warm terra-cotta, thronged with little goat-faced satyrs pursuing nymphs through groves of pregnant vines. Here, supporting the frieze, were pilasters of blood-red porphyry, which burst high up into fronds of gold; while, screening the interspaces on the walls, were panels of glowing tapestry relating the legend of Adonis, from his first budding on the enchanted tree to his final shrouding under the winter of love’s grief. Here, also, the faces of dead Capronas, past lords of this House Beautiful, winked and gloated out of shadowy corners, whenever a log, toppling over on the hearth, sent up a shower of sparks. Prominent in one place was a tall massive clock, copper and brass, a _chef-d’[oe]uvre_ of Dondi the horologist, which thudded the hours melodiously, like a chime of distant bells, and made the swooning senses in love with time. Couches there were everywhere, soft and wooing to the soul of languor; thick rugs and skins upon the marble floor; tables with clawed legs, of chalcedony or jasper, on which were scattered in lovely wantonness a hundred toys of Elysium. Lutes, sweets, and goblets of rich repoussé; wine in green flasks, and delicate long-stemmed glasses; an ivory and silver crucifix, half-hidden under a pile of raisins; two love-birds in a gilded cage, and a golden salver containing an aspic of larks’ tongues, tilted upon a volume of some French Romaunt touching the knightly adventures of Messer Roland a troubadour—these and