The maskers had passed out of the piazza, now, and "Have you seen our friends at Palazzo Pinti lately?" said Mr. Waters. "Not very," said Colville. "I was just on my way there." "I wish you would make them my compliments. Such a beautiful young creature." "Yes," said Colville; "she is certainly a beautiful girl." "I meant Mrs. Bowen," returned the old man quietly. "Oh, I thought you meant Miss Graham. Mrs. Bowen is my contemporary, and so I didn't think of her when you said young. I should have called her pretty rather than beautiful." "No; she's beautiful. The young girl is good-looking--I don't deny that; but she is very crude yet." Colville laughed. "Crude in looks? I should have said Miss Graham was rather crude in mind, though I'm not sure I wouldn't have stopped at saying _young_." "No," mildly persisted the old man; "she couldn't be crude in mind without being crude in looks." "You mean," pursued Colville, smiling, but not wholly satisfied, "that she hasn't a lovely nature?" "You never can know what sort of nature a young girl has. Her nature depends so much upon that of the man whose fate she shares." "The woman is what the man makes her? That is convenient for the woman, and relieves her of all responsibility." "The man is what the woman makes him, too, but not so much so. The man was cast into a deep sleep, you know----" "And the woman was what he dreamed her. I wish she were." "In most cases she is," said Mr. Waters. They did not pursue the matter. The truth that floated in the old minister's words pleased Colville by its vagueness, and flattered the man in him by its implication of the man's superiority. He wanted to say that if Mrs. Bowen were what the late Mr. Bowen had dreamed her, then the late Mr. Bowen, when cast into his deep sleep, must have had Lina Ridgely in his eye. But this seemed to be personalising the fantasy unwarrantably, and pushing it too far. For like reason he forbore to say that if Mr. Waters's theory were correct, it would be better to begin with some one whom nobody else had dreamed before; then you could be sure at least of not having a wife to somebody else's mind rather than your own. Once on his way to Palazzo Pinti, he stopped, arrested by a thought that had not occurred to him before in relation to what Mr. Waters had been saying, and then pushed on with the sense of security which is the compensation the possession of the initiative brings to our sex along with many responsibilities. In the enjoyment of this, no man stops to consider the other side, which must wait his initiative, however they mean to meet it.