"love" is a weariness to me. If only our idiotic laws
permitted us to break the legal bond, how glad both of us would be!'

'You are depressed and anaemic. Get yourself in flesh, and view things
like a man of this world.'

'But don't you think it the best thing that can happen to a man if he
outgrows passion?'

'In certain circumstances, no doubt.'

'In all and any. The best moments of life are those when we contemplate
beauty in the purely artistic spirit--objectively. I have had such
moments in Greece and Italy; times when I was a free spirit, utterly
remote from the temptations and harassings of sexual emotion. What we
call love is mere turmoil. Who wouldn't release himself from it for
ever, if the possibility offered?'

'Oh, there's a good deal to be said for that, of course.'

Reardon's face was illumined with the glow of an exquisite memory.

'Haven't I told you,' he said, 'of that marvellous sunset at Athens? I
was on the Pnyx; had been rambling about there the whole afternoon. For
I dare say a couple of hours I had noticed a growing rift of light in
the clouds to the west; it looked as if the dull day might have a rich
ending. That rift grew broader and brighter--the only bit of light in
the sky. On Parnes there were white strips of ragged mist, hanging very
low; the same on Hymettus, and even the peak of Lycabettus was just
hidden. Of a sudden, the sun's rays broke out. They showed themselves
first in a strangely beautiful way, striking from behind the seaward
hills through the pass that leads to Eleusis, and so gleaming on the
nearer slopes of Aigaleos, making the clefts black and the rounded parts
of the mountain wonderfully brilliant with golden colour. All the rest
of the landscape, remember, was untouched with a ray of light. This
lasted only a minute or two, then the sun itself sank into the open
patch of sky and shot glory in every direction; broadening beams smote
upwards over the dark clouds, and made them a lurid yellow. To the left
of the sun, the gulf of Aegina was all golden mist, the islands floating
in it vaguely. To the right, over black Salamis, lay delicate strips of
pale blue--indescribably pale and delicate.'

'You remember it very clearly.'

'As if I saw it now! But wait. I turned eastward, and there to my
astonishment was a magnificent rainbow, a perfect semicircle, stretching
from the foot of Parnes to that of Hymettus, framing Athens and its
hills, which grew brighter and brigh