She rose and stepped from the verandah down on to the lawn. Some jewel on her slipper shone in the grass like a glow-worm. He followed and walked beside her. “Those are my impressions,” she said. The moon shone in her eyes through a hank of hair. “The condition,” he lectured, “is the condition of one whose generalized passion, as I think you called it, is about to be attached to an object.” “Oh!” She made a fox-face at him and led the way up a path in the bamboo grove. Presently they were hidden there, and the round moon hung in a deep sky behind a delicate pattern of leaves. “Sultry, is it not?” she continued, and loosened her wrap. She glimmered, in her frail gown, like a firefly or some sort of bamboo-fairy. “I would like ... it would be cool. One would bathe in night ... I might, almost, with only you here.” She stood looking at him, as if she really were considering it. Or was there even a mocking? Then “Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed, and shrouded her bosom in her wrap, “do you think Yuan might see us?” “I fancy he would hardly be looking,” Ambrose replied. “I really did think of doing it,” she asserted. “Has my reality-sense gone wrong? It seems quite odd that I should hesitate, with only you here, and in fairyland. Of course, with others about, reality is different. But you and I live in heaven, don’t we? I presume a person will be naked there? So you think the man on the island would not be looking. He does strike one as being a gentleman.” “Does he please you?” “I find him mysterious. What Ruby dislikes about him, I like—I mean the feeling that a cold and merciless god is looking at you. I wish I could be as unself-conscious as that. It’s like being looked at by something impersonal—the wind, the sky. Do you think he is a man? Or some human spirit of the mountains? You do not think him supercilious, do you? Those moth-eyebrows, I mean, and that slanting glance.” “I think his mouth remarkable,” said Ambrose. “Yes. It’s so small and innocent and unpitying, like a flower that can’t feel, or suffer, or know of its own destruction. A mouth that would look the same in torture. You can use that, Ambrose.” He smiled. “A mouth that he surely never uses to eat or kiss with. Will you use some of these words when you are writing in your diary?” “Possibly. Do you understand all that he says?” “What is the difficulty? I don’t find it a matter of understanding. I don’t have to say to myself, ‘What does he mean?’ I feel it in my bones.” Ambrose pondered. “Perhaps you have the same means of consciousness as these Chinese.” He remembered her remarkable insights. “Do you suppose I am a Sage?” she asked.