With all his knowledge of five languages, Demetrius could find no answer, and rose from his knees with the feelings of a man who is trying to melt an iceberg with a lucifer match. Ever since Lady Jim arrived to keep her appointment in the picture gallery, he had been explaining his feelings at length, and in the orthodox attitude of a mortal worshipping a goddess. He had crossed his "t's" and dotted his "i's" with the utmost precision. From English he had glided into French, to plead the attractions of illicit passion: two minutes of German resulted in sentimental assertions of that passion's righteousness, and in illustrations of Wertherism; and, immediately before she asked that impossible question, he had harked back to her native tongue, to impress upon her the solid British common-sense of his wooing. Leah listened to this polyglot love-making with the feeling that she was camping under the tower of Babel. Demetrius might have been a gramophone, pouring out recitations from the poets, for all the impression his impassionate rhetoric made on her well-trained feelings. "I suppose all these speeches can be classified under the heading of love," she said unkindly, when his exhaustion gave her an opportunity of intervening. "But--what is love?" "I have been trying to explain," stammered the Russian, getting on his legs dispiritedly. "Oh, your intentions are of the best. I gather that much; but I am still waiting for a definition." "Love is worship," ventured Demetrius, rashly. "Then why aren't you on your knees?" "I have been on my knees for fifteen minutes." "Really! When did you look at your watch?" "My heart told me." "Then your heart is a time-keeper, or perhaps a time-server." "If you will permit me to serve you, my service will be for all time." "Ah! It seems we are immortal, then?" "You are," he declared passionately; "every goddess is immortal." Lady Jim laughed. This war of words was amusing and pretty, but she wished to arrive at some conclusion which would repay her for spending an hour in a cold gallery, packed with shockingly bad pictures. "I am waiting for your definition of love," she said at length. "I cannot explain the impossible." "It seems to me that you have been trying to do so. Would you like to hear how I define love?" His eyes burned like two menacing stars. "Yes," he muttered in a husky voice, and holding his passions in leash. "Love is sacrifice," said Leah, slowly. "Then I--love you," he burst out. "There is no sacrifice I would not make for your dear sake." "Can I believe that?" "Try me," and he again dropped on his knees. "Get up," said Lady Jim, brusquely. He did so. "Take a seat!" He did so. "Look at the floor, and not at me." He did so. "Now then," she continued, feeling relieved that those fierce eyes were not making her flesh creep, "do you know what you are, Monsieur Demetrius?" "A fool," he murmured bitterly, his gaze on the parquetry.