"You are so good to me," he continued, with passionate eagerness, "that I am not afraid to tell you. I must go; life here is torture to me; it is torture to see you, to hear you speak, to worship you with a heart full of fire, and yet to know that the sun is not farther from me than you, to know that if I laid my life at your feet you would only laugh at me and think me mad. It is torture so great that exile and death seem preferable." He saw her lips quiver, and her eyes, half raised, had in them no angry light. "You are a great lady," he said, "rich, noble, powerful. I am a poor artist. I have but one gift--that is genius. And I have dared, fired by such a beauty as woman never had before, to raise my eyes to you. They are dazzled, blinded, and I must suffer for my rashness; and yet--" He paused, gave another keen glance, felt perfectly satisfied that what he was saying was well received, then went on: "Artists before now have loved great ladies, and by their genius have immortalized them. But I am mad to say such things. This is the age of money-worship, and art is no longer valued as in those times." "I do not value money," she said, in a clear, sweet voice. "I value many things a thousand times more highly." "You are an angel!" he cried. "Even though my love tortures me, I would not change it for the highest pleasures other men enjoy. The poets learn by suffering what they teach in song; so it will be with me. Sorrow will make me a great artist; whereas, if I had been a happy man, I might never, perhaps, have risen much above the common level. I am resigned to suffer all my life." "I do not like to hear you speak so," she said. "Life will not be all suffering." "I have raised my eyes, looked at the sun, and it has dazzled me," he said. "Ah, lady, I have had such dreams, of love that overleaped all barriers, as Art has rendered loveliness immortal for all time. I have dreamed of loves such as Petrarch had for Laura, Dante for Beatrice, and I wake to call myself mad for indulging in such dreams." She was deeply interested. This was exactly as heros spoke in novels; they always had a lofty contempt for money, and talked as though love was the only and universal good. She looked half shyly at him; he was very handsome, this young artist who loved her so, and very sad. How dearly he loved her, and how strange it was! In all this wide world there was not one who cared for her as he did; the thought seemed to bring her nearer to him. No one had ever talked of loving her before. Perhaps the beauty of the May evening softened her and inclined her heart to him; for after a few minutes' silence she said to him: "We are forgetting the very object for which I consented to see you." CHAPTER VI. "It is no wonder," replied Allan Lyster. "I forget everything in speaking to you. You do well, lady, in making me remember myself."