"Rational?" echoes Vane, in surprise. "Am I not that? What is there irrational in finding delight in all that is beautiful, in wishing to be surrounded by sweet sounds and fair objects, in striving to revive the glories of the Hellenic age in worshipping Art as the glorious and ennobling thing it is?" "I am not going to say anything against art," answers Colonel Carlisle; "but I don't think there is anything of the Greek type about Englishmen, either physically or intellectually, leaving out of the question the depressing influences of climate." "Ah!" sighs Vane pityingly. "It is all new and strange to you. Æstheticism, as interpreted by modern hierophants, is, of course, essentially different from the Hellenic school; but its aim and object is the same--to beautify the common things of life, to ennoble the soul, as well as please the eye and elevate the senses." "Well, I am not sufficiently up in the subject to understand or argue about it," laughed the Colonel. "Perhaps after to-night----" "Ah, yes! Wait till you see _her_!" cries Vane enthusiastically. "She who has converts by the hundred, whose intellect is as beautiful as the body which is its temple; to whom not only the worship but the perception of art is a natural and exquisite impulse; whose grace, whose mind, whose movements----" "Oh, for Heaven's sake spare me any more 'serpentine' descriptions!" entreats Carlisle. "I am quite ready to believe in this wonderful high priestess of yours. Is she anything like Ellen Terry?" "Ellen Terry is sublime also," says Vane rebukingly. "There's not another actress on the stage could walk in those clinging draperies of hers. Is she not a poem?" "She _acted_ one," says the Colonel dryly. "I saw her in 'The Cup.' I am not educated up to the appreciation of subtleties yet." "I have met at least a dozen fair-haired girls who have all told me they were considered 'so like Ellen Terry,'" puts in Trentermain. "I began to think she must be a 'priestess' also." "Ah, there are a good many changes since I was in London last," says the Colonel. "But there, I see you are impatient to be off. You--you don't mean to say you are going to wear _that_ flower, Vane?" He points to a gardenia in his button-hole as he speaks. "Yes; why not?" demands his friend in surprise. "Oh! I thought the sunflower or the lily was only admissible," says Carlisle gravely. "I was going to ask if it would be possible to procure one each for Trent and myself before entering the Temple of Art and æstheticism."