they seem to spring like our town-dream of happiness. I
believe they are sensible of it too; but these must do service to my
invalid friend, who cannot travel. Are you ever as much interested in the
woes of great ladies as of country damsels? I am not--not unless they
have natural distinction. You have met Lady Dunstane?'

The question sounded artless. Dacier answered that he thought he had seen
her somewhere once, and Diana shut her lips on a rising under-smile.

'She is the coeur d'or of our time; the one soul I would sacrifice these
flowers to.'

'A bit of a blue-stocking, I think I have heard said.'

'She might have been admitted to the Hotel Rambouillet, without being
anything of a Precieuse. She is the woman of the largest heart now
beating.'

'Mr. Redworth talked of her.'

'As she deserved, I am sure.'

'Very warmly.'

'He would!'

'He told me you were the Damon and Pythias of women.'

'Her one fault is an extreme humility that makes her always play second
to me; and as I am apt to gabble, I take the lead; and I am froth in
comparison. I can reverence my superiors even when tried by intimacy with
them. She is the next heavenly thing to heaven that I know. Court her, if
ever you come across her. Or have you a man's horror of women with
brains?'

'Am I expressing it?' said he.

'Do not breathe London or Paris here on me.' She fanned the crocuses
under her chin. 'The early morning always has this--I wish I had a
word!--touch . . . whisper . . . gleam . . . beat of wings--I envy poets
now more than ever!--of Eden, I was going to say. Prose can paint evening
and moonlight, but poets are needed to sing the dawn. That is because
prose is equal to melancholy stuff. Gladness requires the finer language.
Otherwise we have it coarse--anything but a reproduction. You politicians
despise the little distinctions "twixt tweedledum and tweedledee," I
fancy.'

Of the poetic sort, Dacier's uncle certainly did. For himself he
confessed to not having thought much on them.

'But how divine is utterance!' she said. 'As we to the brutes, poets are
to us.'

He listened somewhat with the head of the hanged. A beautiful woman
choosing to rhapsodize has her way, and is not subjected to the critical
commentary within us. He wondered whether she had discoursed in such a
fashion to his uncle.

'I can read good poetry,' said he.

'If you would have this valley--or mountain-cleft, one should call
it--described, only ver