day of the dear intimacy that was to come. 'If
he could but know me as I am,' he had sighed; but that was all. With the
almost childlike naturalness which is his greatest charm he confessed
this sigh long after, and won that poet's heart. Well I remember his
bursting into our London lodging late one afternoon, great-eyed and
almost in tears for joy of that first visit. He had pre-eminently the
capacity which most fine men have of falling in love with men--as one
may be sure of a subtle greatness in a woman whose eye singles out a
woman to follow on the stage at the theatre--and certainly, no other
phrase can express that state of shining, trembling exaltation, the
passion of the friendships of Narcissus. And although he was rich in
them--rich, that is, as one can be said to be rich in treasure so
rare--saving one only, they have never proved that fairy-gold which such
do often prove. Saving that one, golden fruit still hangs for every
white cluster of wonderful blossom.

'I thought you must care for me if you could but know me aright,'
Narcissus had said.

'Care for you! Why, you beautiful boy! you seem to have dropped from the
stars,' the poet had replied in the caressing fashion of an elder
brother.

He had frankly fallen in love, too: for Narcissus has told me that his
great charm is a boyish naturalness of heart, that ingenuous gusto in
living which is one of the sure witnesses to genius. This is all the
more piquant because no one would suspect it, as, I suppose, few do;
probably, indeed, a consensus would declare him the last man in London
of whom that is true. No one would seem to take more seriously the _beau
monde_ of modern paganism, with its hundred gospels of _La Nuance_; no
one, assuredly, were more _blase_ than he, with his languors of pose,
and face of so wan a flame. The Oscar Wilde of modern legend were not
more as a dweller in Nirvana. But Narcissus maintained that all this was
but a disguise which the conditions of his life compelled him to wear,
and in wearing which he enjoyed much subtle subterranean merriment;
while underneath the real man lived, fresh as morning, vigorous as a
young sycamore, wild-hearted as an eagle, ever ready to flash out the
'password primeval' to such as alone could understand. How else had he
at once taken the stranger lad to his heart with such a sunlight of
welcome? As the maid every boy must have sighed for but so rarely found,
who makes not as if his love were a wear