"In the usual place, ma'am," said Mr. Constantine (now entirely forgetting that which Miss Le Pettit ever remembered)--"in her soul. Did you think it merely a thing of the body? The body may be the objective of passion, but the quality itself is what is meant by the word. It is generated in the soul and may pour itself into strange vessels." "Or even shower its ardours upon a piece of white riband?" cried Miss Le Pettit, with a titter. "Shall we say upon Beauty itself?" corrected Mr. Constantine more gravely than he had yet spoken. Then, with a smile, he elaborated: "For as passion is in the soul, so is beauty in the heart, and hearts have differing vision. That was Loveday's desire. Translate this paltry thing into terms of other ambitions--and where is any one of us then? Unless, indeed, we are so bloodless, so without imagination, that we cannot but be content with our lot just as it is." Miss Le Pettit, who had never seen reason for anything but contentment, and looked upon it as a Christian virtue, demurred with:-- "The whole affair is so ridiculously out of proportion." Mr. Constantine glanced, with admiration in his gallant though elderly eye, over Miss Le Pettit's figure as she lay back in the gilt chair; glanced from her high, polished forehead, round which the smooth chestnut hair showed as gleaming, from her parted red lips and bare, sloping shoulders to her tiny waist and the outward spring beneath it of the clouded tulle that lapped in a dozen baby waves over the globe of her swelling crinoline. "When I was a young man," he said, "the ladies went about in little robes, such as you would not wear nowadays as a shift. We thought them pretty then, and thought none the worse of them because they made the women look more or less as God saw fit to make 'em. Yet now we think you equally lovely as you float about the world like monstrous beautiful bubbles, so that a man must adore at a distance and only guess at Paradise in a gust of wind.... Yet to the next generation, believe me or not as you like, your garb will seem too preposterous to be true, and a generation later Time will pay you the unkindest cut of all--you will be picturesque, and your grand-daughters will revive you--for fancy dress. Proportion, ma'am, is nothing in the world but fashion." "Now we are talking about something I know more about than you, Mr. Constantine," cried Miss Le Pettit archly, "and I, for one, do not believe that the present style of dress can ever go completely out; it is too becoming. We shall have novelties, of course, but the idea will remain the same. And, talking of novelties, if you don't scorn such things, I will tell you a great secret. I am the first person to procure one of the new jackets--like the Princess of Wales wears, you know. You must have heard about them. Alexandra jackets they're called. Isn't that pretty? And they're just as pretty as she is. The sleeve...."