ition,
occupations and all the externals of life. He did not therefore enter
into explanations about things of which I was ignorant and we at once
began to talk without any formality.

What a strange and delightful sensation it was! I remembered all that I
had noticed about him the night before; I knew his character from
admiring its gentleness and patience under the supreme test of
unrequited love, of desire that awakened no response. And he was now
talking to me from the very depths of his soul, while I knew nothing of
who or what he was, nor of what he was doing here. I was really seeing
him from the inside, as we see ourselves behind the scenes of our own
existence, without ever knowing exactly the spectacle which we present
to others. I was observing the inner working of his life before I had
seen the outward presentment.

Speaking to me of his profession, he told me, with a smile, how little
importance he attached to his painting:

"It is only a favourable pretext for the life I have chosen. As you
know, my greatest passion is nature; and I cannot but like the work
which trained my eyes to a clearer vision and my nerves to a finer
response."

He told me of the years which he had wasted in seeking in the customary
amusements the joys which are ordinarily found there. He told me of the
life of luxury and idleness which he had led until the day came when
adverse fate reduced him to living on the income from a small estate
which he owned in the country: a thrice-fortunate day, he added, for
from that moment he had understood that he was made for solitude,
meditation and all the quiet pleasures of nature. Then he
enthusiastically described to me the peaceful charm of his little house
and he employed the words of a lover to extol the charm of his
willow-swept river and the wonders of his flowers and bees.

2

Then I wanted to know what he thought of Rose. He judged her not
inaccurately; but, with a lover's partiality, he applied the words
balance, gentleness, equanimity to qualities which one day, when the
scales had fallen from his eyes, he would call lack of heart and
feeling. Deep-seated differences, perhaps, but yet not of a nature to
affect the very sound principles that ensured his tranquillity.

He had no illusions as to the quality of her mind. But to him, as to
most men, a woman's intellectual value was but a relative factor; and he
did not pause to estimate it with any attempt at accuracy, preferrin