“‘_I sing of times trans-shifting; and I write How Roses first came red, and Lilies white._’” François laughed, as he mimicked the accent of his friend the novelist, who since the days of which he talked, had attained an almost European reputation. “That’s Herrick. You don’t know him? Well, he’s an English seventeenth-century poet, and he wrote on purpose for a woman as simple and natural as Anne Page. She used to read him to us in an old walled garden, where in June that year, the lilies were ‘coming white.’” “And Dampierre?” asked the Vicomte. “I didn’t know Dampierre in those days, remember. Tell me something about him.” He spoke as one speaks of a great man who is dead, whose lightest word is of importance to the admirers who survive him. “René was twenty-seven then,” said François, slowly. “He was a year younger than I. You know how he looked? He was like his mother. Quite magnificent. Oh sometimes absurdly handsome, when the right mood affected his face. He used to dress like an Englishman in those days, in white flannels. When he and Anne walked together they were worth looking at, I can tell you.” “But she was, what was it? Seven--ten years older?” “Yes. She remembered that,” returned François. His companion glanced quickly in his direction. He had never heard the whole story, and his curiosity was roused; but something in his friend’s voice assured him that it would not be gratified. He made a tentative effort, however, by a suggestion half seriously offered. “_Mon ami_, you were in love with her yourself.” François echoed his light laugh. “No,” he declared. “No. My feeling for her now is what it has always been. I have paid her the compliment of thinking of her in a different way from every other woman I ever met. And I’ve never arrived at defining that way to myself. An English writer--I’m boring you to death with English writers to-day,--comes nearest to it in his definition of religion. He says ‘_religion is morality touched by emotion_.’ “Well, I believe what I have always felt for Anne Page is affectionate morality,” he laughed again, “strict morality mind, touched with emotion.” “Have you seen her lately?” “I saw her last June, for the first time in three or four years.” “She’s altered, of course?” “She has. She’s more beautiful. She’s really beautiful now, so that even the turnip-headed people she lives among see and acknowledge it.” “That’s rather wonderful.” “You would think so, if you saw her with them. She’s the village goddess and oracle. Giving to charities with both hands, petitioned for advice and counsel, loved by every one, high and low. That’s not surprising. Nor is it more surprising, I suppose, that she’s happy. Her nature is essentially simple and maternal. She ought to have had children and children’s children by now.” He got up and switched on all the lights, revealing the spacious room, and the beautiful things it contained; revealing also once more the portrait on the easel.