ape of an Antinous, no _amoroso_, no gallant, but a guileless
philosopher. His parted lips were lips which spoke, not of love, but of
millions of miles; those were eyes which habitually gazed, not into the
depths of other eyes, but into other worlds. Within his temples dwelt
thoughts, not of woman's looks, but of stellar aspects and the
configuration of constellations.

Thus, to his physical attractiveness was added the attractiveness of
mental inaccessibility. The ennobling influence of scientific pursuits
was demonstrated by the speculative purity which expressed itself in his
eyes whenever he looked at her in speaking, and in the childlike faults
of manner which arose from his obtuseness to their difference of sex. He
had never, since becoming a man, looked even so low as to the level of a
Lady Constantine. His heaven at present was truly in the skies, and not
in that only other place where they say it can be found, in the eyes of
some daughter of Eve. Would any Circe or Calypso--and if so, what
one?--ever check this pale-haired scientist's nocturnal sailings into the
interminable spaces overhead, and hurl all his mighty calculations on
cosmic force and stellar fire into Limbo? Oh, the pity of it, if such
should be the case!

She became much absorbed in these very womanly reflections; and at last
Lady Constantine sighed, perhaps she herself did not exactly know why.
Then a very soft expression lighted on her lips and eyes, and she looked
at one jump ten years more youthful than before--quite a girl in aspect,
younger than he. On the table lay his implements; among them a pair of
scissors, which, to judge from the shreds around, had been used in
cutting curves in thick paper for some calculating process.

What whim, agitation, or attraction prompted the impulse, nobody knows;
but she took the scissors, and, bending over the sleeping youth, cut off
one of the curls, or rather crooks,--for they hardly reached a curl,--into
which each lock of his hair chose to twist itself in the last inch of its
length. The hair fell upon the rug. She picked it up quickly, returned
the scissors to the table, and, as if her dignity had suddenly become
ashamed of her fantasies, hastened through the door, and descended the
staircase.

VI

When his nap had naturally exhausted itself Swithin awoke. He awoke
without any surprise, for he not unfrequently gave to sleep in the day-
time what he had stolen from it in the nig