she said; "I am so sorry for you both."

"But," she continued presently, "you should both be very happy too--for
it would be worth while to suffer for so beautiful a love.... I feel
happy," she added half gaily, "even to resemble a woman who is so
wonderfully loved."

Theophil lingered on, still fascinated, till the actress suggested that
he should walk with her to her hotel. Arrived there, Theophil, to the
possible scandalising of Coalchester, accepted her invitation to a
further chat over supper; and when at last he was back at Zion Place,
his heart was aware of a new comfort and a new pain. He had leaned his
head on a woman's kind shoulder, and she had let him talk and talk about
Jenny; but her shoulder had been warm, and it had been sweet to be
near her ...

"A creature might forget to weep who bore;
Thy comfort long" ...

and Theophil went to sleep that night with the taste of honey upon his
lips.

But with the morning there came to him remorseful misgivings, and he
told himself that it had been one of the sophistries of the flesh, a
call of the senses taking in vain the sacred name of Jenny; and then for
his comfort he remembered how the greatest of all lovers, Dante, had
craved in like manner for the solace of "a very pitiful lady, very
young," and had been similarly remorseful on account of his momentary
preoccupation with her.

Taking down his "Vita Nuova," he read: "_At length, by the constant
sight of this lady, mine eyes began to be gladdened overmuch with her
company; through which thing many times I had much unrest, and rebuked
myself as a base person: also, many times I cursed the unsteadfastness
of mine eyes, and said to them inwardly: 'Was not your grievous
condition of weeping wont one while to make others weep? And will ye now
forget this thing because a lady looketh upon you? who so looketh merely
in compassion of the grief ye then showed for your own blessed lady. But
what so ye can, that do ye, accursed eyes! many a time will I make you
remember it! for never, till death dry you up, should ye make an end of
your weeping_.'"

Moreover, Dante had married Gemma within a year of the death of
Beatrice, and had even lived so scandalously meanwhile as to bring down
upon him the stern reproof of his friend Guido Calvancanti; yet the
world still regards him as the type of all faithful lovers.
Faithfulness is an attitude of the mind, and all it touches turns to
Beatrice. Yet--

"Ex