The Colonel had been delighted and a little relieved to find that the
'things' were nearly all of beasts and birds. "Very interestin'" to one
full of curious lore about such, having in his time killed many of them,
and finding himself at the end of it with a curious aversion to killing
any more--which he never put into words.

Acquaintanceship had ripened fast after that first visit to his studio,
and now it was her turn to be relieved that Mark Lennan devoted himself
almost entirely to beasts and birds instead of to the human form,
so-called divine. Ah! yes--she would have suffered; now that she loved
him, she saw that. At all events she could watch his work and help it
with sympathy. That could not be wrong....

She fell asleep at last, and dreamed that she was in a boat alone on the
river near her country cottage, drifting along among spiky flowers
like asphodels, with birds singing and flying round her. She could move
neither face nor limbs, but that helpless feeling was not unpleasant,
till she became conscious that she was drawing nearer and nearer to
what was neither water nor land, light nor darkness, but simply some
unutterable feeling. And then she saw, gazing at her out of the rushes
on the banks, a great bull head. It moved as she moved--it was on both
sides of her, yet all the time only one head. She tried to raise her
hands and cover her eyes, but could not--and woke with a sob.... It was
light.

Nearly six o'clock already! Her dream made her disinclined to trust
again to sleep. Sleep was a robber now--of each minute of these few
days! She got up, and looked out. The morning was fine, the air warm
already, sweet with dew, and heliotrope nailed to the wall outside her
window. She had but to open her shutters and walk into the sun. She
dressed, took her sunshade, stealthily slipped the shutters back, and
stole forth. Shunning the hotel garden, where the eccentricity of her
early wandering might betray the condition of her spirit, she passed
through into the road toward the Casino. Without perhaps knowing it, she
was making for where she had sat with him yesterday afternoon, listening
to the band. Hatless, but defended by her sunshade, she excited the
admiration of the few connoisseurs as yet abroad, strolling in blue
blouses to their labours; and this simple admiration gave her pleasure.
For once she was really conscious of the grace in her own limbs,
actually felt the gentle vividness of her own face, wit