" says Stephen,
glancing at Dulce. "And indeed I wanted nothing further--but if I may
smoke--if I have your permission to light this," producing a cigar, "I
shall feel that my end is near; I shall know that the gods love me, and
that therefore I _must_ die young."

As he places the cigar between his lips he leans back again at Dulce's
feet with a sigh suggestive of unutterable bliss.

"We were talking about you just before you came," says Dulce, with a
little friendly nod, bending over his recumbent form, and making him a
present of a very adorable smile. "We had all, you know, formed such
different opinions about you."

"What was your opinion," asks he, rising to a sitting posture with an
alacrity not to be expected from a youth of his indolence. In this last
attitude, however, it is easier to see Dulce's charming face. "I
_should_ like to know that."

His manner implies that he would not like to hear the opinion of the
others.

"It was nothing very flattering, I am afraid," said Dulce, with a little
laugh. "I was--to confess the truth--just in the very faintest degree
nervous about you."

"About _me_!"

"Yes," she laughed softly again; "I thought you might be a
'blue-and-white young man,' and that idea filled me with dismay. I don't
think I like a 'soul-ful eyed young man,' _too_ much."

"I'm so glad I'm of the 'threepenny 'bus' lot," says Gower, with a
smile. "Ye gods! what a shocking thought is the other. Look at my hair,
I entreat you, Miss Blount, and tell me does it resemble the lanky locks
of Oscar?"

"No, it is anything but wylde," says Dulce, glancing at his shaven
crown, that any hermit might be proud of: "and do you know I am glad of
your sanity; I should quite hate you if you were a disciple of that
school."

"Poor school," says Gower, pityingly, "for the first time I feel deep
sympathy for it. But with regard to myself, I am flattered you troubled
yourself to think of me at all. Did it really matter to you what my
convictions might be?"

"Yes, of course," says Dulce, opening her eyes, and showing herself
half in fun, half in earnest, and wholly desirable. "Such a near
neighbor as you must be. I suppose we shall see a good deal of you--at
least"--sweetly--"I hope we shall; and how would it be with us if you
called here every morning with lanky tresses, and a cadaverous face, and
words culled from a language obsolete?"

This little speech quite dazzles Gower. Not the sauciness of it, but the