ng in two straight plaits on either side of her
face; the reflection of the violets in the profound dark blue of her
eyes, perplexing, heavy-lidded, almond-shaped, oriental; the aroma
and the imperial red of the carnations in her lips, with their almost
Egyptian fulness; the whiteness of the lilies, the perfume of the
lilies, and the lilies' slender balancing grace in her neck. Her hands
disengaged the odour of the heliotropes. The folds of her dress gave off
the enervating scent of poppies. Her feet were redolent of hyacinths.

For a long time after sitting down upon the bench, neither the priest
nor Vanamee spoke. But after a while Sarria took his cigar from his
lips, saying:

"How still it is! This is a beautiful old garden, peaceful, very quiet.
Some day I shall be buried here. I like to remember that; and you, too,
Vanamee."

"Quien sabe?"

"Yes, you, too. Where else? No, it is better here, yonder, by the side
of the little girl."

"I am not able to look forward yet, sir. The things that are to be are
somehow nothing to me at all. For me they amount to nothing."

"They amount to everything, my boy."

"Yes, to one part of me, but not to the part of me that belonged to
Angele--the best part. Oh, you don't know," he exclaimed with a sudden
movement, "no one can understand. What is it to me when you tell me that
sometime after I shall die too, somewhere, in a vague place you call
Heaven, I shall see her again? Do you think that the idea of that ever
made any one's sorrow easier to bear? Ever took the edge from any one's
grief?"

"But you believe that----"

"Oh, believe, believe!" echoed the other. "What do I believe? I don't
know. I believe, or I don't believe. I can remember what she WAS, but
I cannot hope what she will be. Hope, after all, is only memory seen
reversed. When I try to see her in another life--whatever you call
it--in Heaven--beyond the grave--this vague place of yours; when I try
to see her there, she comes to my imagination only as what she was,
material, earthly, as I loved her. Imperfect, you say; but that is as
I saw her, and as I saw her, I loved her; and as she WAS, material,
earthly, imperfect, she loved me. It's that, that I want," he exclaimed.
"I don't want her changed. I don't want her spiritualised, exalted,
glorified, celestial. I want HER. I think it is only this feeling that
has kept me from killing myself. I would rather be unhappy in the
memory of what she actually was, tha