She made no reply. And he entered, as into another world, the circular arbour in which the pergola ended, so complete in contrast was its atmosphere to that of the house. The mansion he had long since grown to recognize as an expression of the personality of its owner, but this classic bower was as remote from it as though it were in Greece. He was sensitive to beauty, yet the beauty of the place had a perplexing quality, which he felt in the perfect curves of the marble bench, in the marble basin brimming to the tip with clear water,--the surface of which, flecked with pink petals, mirrored the azure sky through the leafy network of the roof. In one green recess a slender Mercury hastily adjusted his sandal. Was this, her art, the true expression of her baffling personality? As she had leaned back in the corner of the automobile she had given him the impression of a languor almost Oriental, but this had been startlingly dispelled at the lunch-table by the revelation of an animation and a vitality which had magically transformed her. But now, as under the spell of a new encompassment of her own weaving, she seemed to revert to her former self, sinking, relaxed, into a wicker lounge beside the basin, one long and shapely hand in the water, the other idle in her lap. Her eyes, he remarked, were the contradiction in her face. Had they been larger, and almond-shaped, the illusion might have been complete. They were neither opaque nor smouldering,--but Western eyes, amber-coloured, with delicately stencilled rays and long lashes. And as they gazed up at him now they seemed to reflect, without disclosing the flitting thoughts behind them. He felt antagonism and attraction in almost equal degree --the situation transcended his experience. "You don't intend to change this?" he asked, with an expressive sweep of his hand. "No," she said, "I've always liked it. Tell me what you feel about it." He hesitated. "You resent it," she declared. "Why do you say that?" he demanded quickly. "I feel it," she answered calmly, but with a smile. "'Resent' would scarcely be the proper word," he contended, returning her smile, yet hesitating again. "You think it pagan," she told him. "Perhaps I do," he answered simply, as though impressed by her felicitous discovery of the adjective. Alison laughed. "It's pagan because I'm pagan, I suppose." "It's very beautiful--you have managed to get an extraordinary atmosphere," he continued, bent on doing himself an exact justice. But I should say, if you pressed me, that it represents to me the deification of beauty to the exclusion of all else. You have made beauty the Alpha and Omega." "There is nothing else for me," she said. The coffee-tray arrived and was deposited on a wicker table beside her. She raised herself on an elbow, filled his cup and handed it to him. "And yet," he persisted, "from the manner in which you spoke at the table--" "Oh, don't imagine I haven't thought? But thinking isn't--believing."