“Do you actually think, Florian, that, now, you can harm the little pet? Florian, that is one fault you have, though I am far from saying it is the only one. Still, as I so often think, no one of us is perfect: and perpetual fault-finding never gets you anywhere, does it? Even so, Florian, there is no denying you do not like to take a common-sense view of the most self-evident facts when the facts are not quite what you want them to be, and that much I feel I ought to tell you frankly. Otherwise, Florian, you would comprehend at once that I have only to cry out to St. Hoprig, who is back yonder chopping the wood to cook our supper, after those cherubs were positively rude about being asked to do it, and then he will blast you with a miracle.” She had gone back to her outlandish mediæval clothing. He recognized, now, the dreadful gown she was wearing the morning he first came to her upon the mountain top,—that glaring, shiny, twinkling affair, which reminded you of an Opera dancer’s costume in some spectacular ballet. For a Duchess of Puysange to be thus preposterously attired was unbecoming, and was in quite abominable taste. “First, madame,” said Florian, with a vexed, rather tired sigh, “let us explain matters. I have loved you since my boyhood, Melior, with a love which no woman, I think, can understand. For I loved you worshipfully, without hope, without any actual desire: and I loved you, by ill-luck, with a whole-heartedness which has prevented my ever loving anything else. It is droll that a little color and glitter and a few plump curves, seen once and very briefly, should be able to make all other things not quite worth troubling about. But the farce is old. They used to call us nympholepts; and they fabled that the beauty which robbed us of all normal human joys was divine. Well, I have no desire to discuss the nature of divinity, madame, nor to bore you with any further talking about what no woman understands. It suffices that I loved you in this pre-eminently ridiculous fashion; and that a way was offered me by which I might very incredibly win to you.” To which Melior replied: “You mean about your bargaining with Janicot, I suppose, and I am sure I never heard of such nonsense in my life. Why, Florian, to think that the moment I let you out of my sight, even if it was a little while before I first actually saw you, because that does not in the least alter the principle of the thing,—quite apart from its happening the same morning, anyhow,—that you should be mixing yourself up with such people! It is positively incredible! But, as for your supposing that I am going to let you and your Janicots lay one finger on my precious lamb—!”