The earnestness of his tone and manner was unmistakable, and beneath the bold admiration of his fine eyes, the carmine came swiftly back to her blanched cheek. "_Beau monde_ and its fashionable foibles constitute a sealed volume to me. My world is apart from that in which General Laurance wins myrtle crowns, and wears them so royally." "When genius like Madame's monopolizes the bay, we less gifted mortals must even twine myrtle leaves, or else humbly bow, bare of chaplets. But may I ask why you so sternly taboo that social world which you are so pre-eminently fitted to grace and adorn? When your worshippers are wellnigh frenzied with delight, watching you beyond the footlights, you cruelly withdraw behind the impenetrable curtain of seclusion; and only at rare intervals allow us tantalizing glimpses of you, seated in mocking inaccessibility between those two most abominable ancient griffons, whose claws and beaks are ever ferociously prominent. When some desperate deluded adorer rashly hires a band of Neapolitan experts to stab, and bury that grim pair of jailers in the broad deep grave out there, toward Procida, the crime of murder will be upon Madame's fair head." "And if I answer that that fine world you love so well is to me but as a grey stone quarry wherein I daily toil, solely for food and raiment for my child and myself, what then?" "Then verily if that be possible, Pygmalion's cold beauty were no longer a fable; and I should turn sculptor. Do you not find that here in Parthenope you rapidly drift into the classic tide that strands you on Paganism?" "Has it borne you one inch away from the gods of your life-long worship?" As she spoke, she bent slightly forward, and searched his bright eyes, as if therein floated his soul. "Indeed I can answer reverently, with my band upon my heart, Italy has given me a new worship, a goddess I never knew before. My divinity----" "Belongs, sir, to the _Dii Involuti!_ Fortunate provision of fate, which leaves us at least liberty to deify, you perhaps family pride, Venus, or even avaricious Pluto; I possibly ambition or revenge. We all have our veiled gods, shrouded close from curious gaze; 'the heart knoweth his own bitterness, and the stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.'" She had interrupted him with an imperious wave of her hand, and spoke through closed teeth, like one tossing down a gage of battle; but the brilliant smile still lighted her splendid eyes, and showed the curves of her temptingly beautiful mouth.