Yet, as if this at least were a sympathy between them, his manner became for the moment tenderer, and he forgot himself in order to arouse her. For Eloise was already full of reproach at having made one at so gay a reunion,--not remembering that all the rest had seriously vowed they would stay at home, unless she joined them, and that the wedding had been also that of a dear friend. So Mr. St. George was no longer lofty; he told her strange legends of the region that somehow she had never heard, repeated tiny droplets of song that would have lost their volatile essence in any alembic of translation, pointed out to her all the signs of the night, for the nonce forgot politics, and gathered spray after spray of the gorgeous creepers from the way-side, whose names and natures he knew. "How is it," she asked, "that you, whose mind is certainly filled with things of an apparently vaster scale,--with legislation and war and finance,--can care for these bubbles, these songs and flowers?" "Do you know Homer, Miss Eloise,--Chapman's Homer? Although I'm not sure but that the old English poet breathes a bloom upon the Greek. Well, I do not forget, that, when the envoys went to appease the enraged AEacides, that thunderer in arms,-- "The quarter of the Myrmidons they reached, and found him set Delighted with his solemn harp, which curiously was fret With works conceited through the verge; the bawdrick that embraced His lofty neck was silver twist; this, when his hand laid waste Aetion's city, he did choose as his especial prize, And, loving sacred music well, made it his exercise." "That is superb! You must find me the place to-morrow. But Achilles playing on the harp? I am afraid he will suffer in Will Murray's estimation." "Hush! don't breathe it! Will doesn't know it yet,--perhaps may never find it out. Do you know, Miss Eloise, as you go flitting along in that misty dress, with the little scarf dropping from your hair, that you are like the very soul of a white cloud fallen from above and trailing along beside me?" "I? with my dark skin?" said Eloise, before she thought. "Yes, you, Egypt! White, because there combine all colors that are; and in you--pardon me--there is a universal wealth of tint, be it carnation, sea-green, black, or cream, so harmonized that one looks a hundred times before finding it all. You recollect how a great painter produces his effect of white,--of white sunlight on a stem? He lays the solar spectrum there, the seven colors of light,--and their union in the beholder's eye makes the dash of sunshine, the white lustre. Do you know, in fact, what you remind me of?" "No,--how should I?--Hark! what was that?" It was the pealing of a bell, the far and faint pulsation of that bell she had once before heard, as it rang out the changes of the sea, now above and now below the flashing, falling foam-crests.