fies analysis. They weep,
confess, cajole, attack, reproach, renounce, and at the end of it all
you are as baffled as ever. Their souls are like those extraordinary
bronze mirrors one sees nowadays. You look and see a picture. You go
off in amused annoyance, your head over your shoulder, and see another
picture. And when you come back again determined to be fair and candid,
you see yet another picture, or perhaps a mere shining blank, a dazzling
and expensive enigma. I knew all this. I saw all this; and yet I
lingered. I was unable to resist the piquant pleasure of watching the
girl, of occupying the position of confidant. I understood how the
obscure husband of a celebrated theatrical star must feel without
experiencing his grim regret. And when the page, in his blue and silver,
with his miraculously brushed hair, and his expression of almost
unearthly cleanliness, carried me upward once more, I had attained the
right mood again for meeting these adventures in vicarious emotion.
After all, for those of us to whom the avenues of fame, of wealth, of
the domestic virtues are closed, there remains an occasional ramble in
the romantic bye-ways of life. One may still meet young knights in
shining armour, haughty kings and queens, and women with unfathomable
eyes engaged upon mysterious quests. We can always run back to our old
mother, the sea, and restore our souls upon her comfortable bosom.

"And I found myself again in that palatial apartment. There was no one
there apparently. The page had closed the door and left me. I turned at
the sound of a voice and saw her standing in the doorway of the next
room, a figure in pale, shimmering gold, holding back a _portiere_ of
heavy dark blue velvet. Holding it back for me to enter, and watching me
with the old, derisive, questioning smile.

"'You have come back very quickly,' she said, going over to a lounge and
patting a chair beside it.

"'Why did you send me to him?' I demanded, good-humouredly. She lay down
on the lounge and turned toward me, her head on her palm.

"'What did he say?' she asked, and in her voice was that peculiar timbre
of which I have already spoken, a delicate quality of tone that made one
think of bells at a distance, a hint of fairy lands forlorn. I could
understand how, to a young man in love with her, that exquisite
modulation of tone would drive him mad.

"'He was not sympathetic,' I replied. 'He seemed to jump to the
conclusion you didn't really n