Her words, the careless complacency which accompanied them, the ease of her posture with her head thrown far back in the chair and her eyes directed steadfastly to Northcote’s face, filled him with a cruel sensation of pleasure. Knowledge translated into the grace of physical perfection had an all-conquering attraction for his nature. Every blemish upon her, and as she lay back in the shadow of the lamp they appeared surprisingly few, were additions to her value. They were so many receipted acknowledgments of the heavy sums she had paid for what she possessed. There was a short but deep scar over one eye. There was a suggestion of coarseness in her jaw; her bust looked a little too full. “What shall I call you?” said the young advocate with shining eyes. “Shall I call you Diomeda?” “Do, my beloved Achilles!” “How do you come to have heard about him? Is it that Greek is compulsory in the University of the Gutter?” “Achilles was perfectly familiar to me before I attended it. My dear father used to tell us stories from Homer when he was drunk.” “Well, Diomeda, I have come to believe that your father must have been a very remarkable man.” “The world will arrive at a similar belief two hundred years hence. But how can you have acquired such an important piece of information concerning him when you have never seen one of his works?” “Do not forget that for the past hour I have been gazing upon his _chef-d’œuvre_, the masterpiece among his masterpieces.” “On the contrary, my beloved, you are judging him by his one great failure. In conception, in design, I have no peer in this time of ours, but the inspiration of the artist failed suddenly and lamentably before he could touch me with the magic that would have rendered me immortal. I am a splendid thing, my beloved, but I shall perish. Therefore the artist has failed.” “This is a masculine intellect of yours,” said Northcote, who was captivated by the celerity with which she had interpreted an idea that in his own mind had still the nebulosity of recent birth. “Is it usual to your sex to have such powers?” “You will confess that you would not say so? Are they not eternally dunces and fools in the austere eyes of the male?” “Perhaps I make that confession if you insist upon the measure of my ignorance.” “Say rather, my hero, the measure of your inexperience. You see you have only studied those of my sex who are affiliated to the Great Trades’ Union. They take eternal vows of foolishness and duncishness before they are admitted to membership of that sanctified order. But with us black-legs it is different. We are allowed to know everything. You may not know that in our University of the Gutter we have the most learned staff of professors in the world. There is a chair for everything.” “Except for honesty. If there was a chair for that, would there not at once be an end to your intellectual subtlety?”