"I have been reading," she said, "a book full of extracts--all about love. I have never understood what love is. If I ask Dorothy, she looks at Geoffrey Heron and sighs. If I ask him, he tells me that he cannot be my servant to teach me, because he is already sworn to another. What does this mean? Have the old times come back again, so that men once more call themselves slaves of love? Yet what does it mean?" "Tell me," said Jack, "what you have been reading." "Listen, then. Oh, it is the strangest extravagance! What did men mean when they could gravely write down, and expect to be read, such things as-- "'I do love you more than words can wield the matter-- Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty; Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare?' 'Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty.' Did they really mean that?" "They meant more; they meant dearer than life itself!" said Jack, slowly. "Only it was stupid always to say the same thing." "Well, then, listen to this: "'Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love That inward beauty and invisible; Or, were I deaf, thy outward parts would move Each part in me that were but sensible. Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see, Yet should I be in love, by touching thee.' Now, Jack, what can that mean? Was anything more absurd?" "Read another extract, Christine." "Here is a passage more difficult than any other: "'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes, figure unheedy haste. And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.' Tell me, if you can, what this means. But perhaps you were never in love, Jack, in the old times." "Romeo was in love before he met Juliet," said Jack. "I, too, have been reading the old books, you see, Child. I remember--but how can I tell you? I cannot speak like the poet. Yet I remember--I remember." He looked round the room. "It is only here," he murmured, "that one can clearly remember. Here are the very things which used to surround our daily life. And here are youth and age. They were always with us in the old time--youth and age. Youth with love before, and age with love behind. Always we knew that as that old man, so should we become. The chief joys of life belonged to youth; we knew very well that unless we snatched them then we should never have them. To age we gave respect, because age, we thought, had wisdom; but to us--to us--who were young, age cried unceasingly-- "'Gather ye rose-buds while ye may.' If I could tell only you! Christine, come with me into the Picture Gallery. My words are weak, but the poets and the painters speak for us. Come! We shall find something there that will speak for me what I have not words to say for myself."