To-day there was a _spirituelle_ beauty in the white face that he had never seen before; and the large eloquent eyes were full of dreamy sunset radiance, unlike their wonted steely glitter. A change, vague and indefinable, but unmistakable, had certainly passed over that countenance since its owner came to reside at "Solitude," and, instead of marring, had heightened its loveliness. The features were thinner, the cheeks had lost something of their pure oval moulding, and the delicate nostrils were almost transparent in their waxen curves; but the arch of the lip was softened and lowered, and the face was like that of some marble goddess on which mid-summer moonshine sleeps. Her white mull robe was edged at the skirt and up the front with a rich border of blue morning-glories, and a blue cord and tassel girded it at her waist, while the broad braids of hair at the back of her head were looped and fastened with a ribbon of the same color. Her sleeves were gathered up to keep them clear of the paint on the palette, and the dimples were no longer visible in her arms. The ivory flesh was shrinking closer to the small bones, and the diaphanous hands were so thin that the sapphire asp glided almost off the slender finger around which it was coiled. "Mrs. Gerome, you have lost twenty pounds of flesh within the last two months, and your extreme pallor alarms me." "All things look pallid in these rooms, for the light is bluish, reflected from carpet, furniture, and curtains." "I have noticed that you invariably wear blue, to the exclusion of all other colors." "Yes. Throughout the Levant it is considered a mortuary color; and, moreover, I like its symbolism. The _Mater dolorosa_ often wears blue vestments; also the priests during Lent; and even the images of Christ are veiled in blue, as holy week approaches. Azure, in its absolute significance, represents truth, and is the symbol of the soul after death; so, as I walk the earth,--a fleshy 'death in life,'--I clothe myself symbolically. In pagan cosmogonies the Creator is always colored blue. Jupiter Ammon, Vischnou, Cneph, Krischna,--all are azure. And because it is a solemn, consecrated color, mystic and mournful, I wear it." "My dear madam, this is a morbid whimsicality that trenches closely upon monomania, and would be more tolerable in a lackadaisical school-girl, than in a mature, intelligent, and gifted woman. Some of your fantasies would be positively respectable in a Bedlamite, and you seem an anomalous compound of eccentricities peculiar to extreme youth and to advanced age." "I believe, sir, that you are entirely correct in your analysis. I stand before you, young in years, but forsaken by that 'blue-eyed Hope' who frolics hand in hand with youth; and yet utterly devoid of that philosophy and wisdom which justly belong to the old age of my heart."