terfly that has never seen his kindred knows
his painted mate, passing on the wing all others by. Only when the
lark shall mate with the nightingale, and the honey-bee and the
clock-beetle keep house together, shall I wed another maid. Fair maybe
she will not be, though fair to me. Wise maybe she will not be, though
wise to me. For riches I care not, and of her kindred I have no care.
All I know is that just to sit by her will be bliss, just to touch her
bliss, just to hear her speak bliss beyond all mortal telling."

Thereat the Sweetness of the Strength of the Oak smiled upon me and
said,--

"Follow yonder green path till it leads you into a little grassy glade,
where is a crystal well and a hut of woven boughs hard by, and you
shall see her whom you seek."

And as she spoke she faded suddenly, and the side of the oak was once
more as the solid rock. With hot heart I took the green winding path,
and presently came the little grassy glade, and the bubbling crystal
well, and the hut of wattled boughs, and, looking through the open door
of the hut, I saw a lovely girl lying asleep in her golden hair. She
smiled sweetly in her sleep, and stretched out her arms softly, as
though to enfold the dear head of her lover. And, ere I knew, I was
bending over her, and as her sweet breath came and went I whispered:
"Grace o' God, I am here. I have sought you through the world, and
found you at last. Grace o' God, I have come."

And then I thought her great eyes opened, as when the sun sweeps clear
blue spaces in the morning sky. "Flower o' Men," then said she, low
and sweet,--"Flower o' Men, is it you indeed? As you have sought, so
have I waited, waited..." And thereat her arms stole round my neck,
and I awoke, and Grace o' God was suddenly no more than a pretty name
that my dream had given me.

"A pretty dream," said my soul, "though a little boyish for thirty."
"And a most excellent sherry," added my body.

CHAPTER V

CONCERNING THE PERFECT WOMAN, AND THEREFORE CONCERNING ALL FEMININE
READERS

As I once more got under way, my thoughts slowly loitered back to the
theme which had been occupying them before I dropped asleep. What was
my working hypothesis of the Perfect Woman, towards whom I was thus
leisurely strolling? She might be defined, I reflected, as The Woman
Who Is Worthy Of Us; but the improbability which every healthily
conceited young man must feel of ever finding such a one made the
definition