f their character stand out, relieved of the thousand
little alterations and erasures which the scrupulous hand of truth is
constantly making as it passes hither and thither, now rubbing out, now
redrawing, until at last the impression is no longer a very clear one.

From the day when I separated my life completely from the life of Rose,
her character appeared to me distinctly; and at the same time, now that
it was free to come down to its own level, it asserted itself in its
turn. Until that moment, while I had been careful to put no pressure
upon her, I had nevertheless been asking her to choose her tastes and
occupations on a plane that was unsuitable for her.

Her moral outlook was good, true and not at all silly, but it was
limited; and, in trying to make her see life swiftly and from above, as
though in a bird's-eye view, I had made it impossible for her to
distinguish anything.

Her fault was that she had not been able to change, mine was that I had
had too much faith in her possibilities. My optimism had wound itself
around her immobility and fastened to it, even as ivy coils around a
stone statue, without communicating to it the smallest portion of its
sturdy and luxuriant little life.

2

And now it is six months since we parted; and I am going to-day to see
her for the first time in her new existence.

I look out of the window of the railway-carriage; and my mind calls up
memories which glide past with the autumn fields. First comes the
departure of Floris, wearied by the incomprehensible attitude of the
girl. He went away shortly after our meeting, still philosophical and
cheerful, in spite of his disappointment. And the part which he played
in my experiment taught me something that guided my efforts into a fresh
direction: if Rose's beauty was to him sufficient compensation for her
commonplace character, could not I also accept the girl as something out
of which to weave romance and beauty? Does not everything lie in the
mere fact of consent? Passive and silent, would she not become a rare
object in my life, a precious stone?

"Woman blossoms into fullest flower by doing nothing," some one has
said. "Women who do not work form the beauty of the world."

I took Rose to live with me and for weeks devoted myself exclusively to
her appearance and her manners. I sought if possible to perfect the
exterior. It was all in vain. This beautiful creature was so totally
ignorant of what beauty meant that she