would wait, and love only at the proper time, and
meanwhile put up with statuary." So Lutwyche had resolved that precisely
"on that matter" should his malice concentrate. He happened to hear of a
young Greek girl at Malamocco, "white and quiet as an apparition, and
fourteen years old at farthest." She was said to be a daughter of the
"hag Natalia"--said, that is, by the hag herself to be so, but Natalia
was, in plain words, a procuress. "We selected," said Lutwyche, "this
girl as the heroine of our jest"; and he and his gang set to work at
once. Jules received, first, a mysterious perfumed letter from somebody
who had seen his work at the Academy and profoundly admired it: she
would make herself known to him ere long. . . . "Paolina, my little
friend of the Fenice," who could transcribe divinely, had copied this
letter--"the first moonbeam!"--for Lutwyche; and she copied many more
for him, the letters which Psyche, at the studio, was to keep in the
fold of her robe.

In his very earliest answer, Jules had proposed marriage to the unknown
writer. . . . How they had laughed! But Gottlieb, hearing, could not
laugh. "I say," cried he, "you wipe off the very dew of his youth."
Schramm, however, had had his pipe forcibly taken from his mouth, and
then had pronounced that "nothing worth keeping is ever lost in this
world"; so, Gottlieb silenced, Lutwyche went on with the story. The
letters had gone to Jules, and the answers had come from him, two, three
times a day; Lutwyche himself had concocted nearly all the mysterious
lady's, which had said she was in thrall to relatives, that secrecy must
be observed--in short, that Jules must wed her on trust, and only speak
to her when they were indissolubly united.

But that, when accomplished, was not the whole of Lutwyche's revenge,
nor of his activity. To get the full savour of his malice, the victim
must be undeceived in such a way that there could be no mistaking the
hand which had struck; and this could best be achieved by writing a copy
of verses which should reveal their author at the end. Nor should these
be given Phene to hand Jules, for so Lutwyche would lose the delicious
actual instant of the revelation. No; they should be taught her, line by
line and word by word (since she could not read), and taught her by the
hag Natalia, that not a subtle pang be spared the "strutting
stone-squarer." Thus, listening beneath the window, Lutwyche could enjoy
each word, each moan, and w