er and, with a long yawn
that revealed all the pearly freshness of her mouth, asked:

"But what _do_ you see in it?"

I slipped my arm under hers and led her away through the deserted rooms.
I ought to have spoken. But how empty are our most pregnant words, when
we try to express one iota of our admiration!

"Why should you mind what I see, my Roseline? It is you and you alone
who can discover what you like and what interests you."

We were passing in front of Titian's _Laura de' Dianti_. I was struck
with the relationship that existed between her and my companion.
Although Rose was different in colouring, fairer, with lighter eyes, she
had the same purity of feature, the thin, straight nose, the very small
mouth and, above all, the same vague look that lends itself to the most
diverse interpretations. She squeezed my arm:

"Speak to me, speak to me!"

I glanced at her. Must it always be so, would she never feel anything
except when my own emotion found utterance? Impressions reached her soul
only after filtering through mine. Love, I thought to myself, love alone
would perhaps one day set free all the raptures now jealously hidden in
those too-chaste nerves. And, in spite of myself, I exclaimed:

"Don't you think that admiration in a woman is only another form of
love?"

"But when she is no longer young?" Rose retorted, with a laugh.

"When she is no longer young, nature doubtless suggests other means of
enthusiasm. Her heart is no longer a bond of union between her and
things. Then her calmer eyes are perhaps able to look at beauty itself,
without having all the joys of a woman's love-filled life to kindle
their fires."

The Rubens pictures were around us, in all their brilliancy and in all
their glory, uttering cries of passion and luxury with voices of flesh
and blood and youth. They were another proof of what I had just said;
and I confessed to my companion:

"It is not so long ago, Rose, that I used to pass unmoved through this
dazzling room where the Rubens flourish in their luscious beauty. I used
to look at them: now, I see them; I used to brush by them: now, I grasp
them. I enter into all this riot of happiness around us, which is a
thousand miles away from you, Rose; and it adds to my own joy in
life...."

"But then what has come to you?" exclaimed the girl.

I could not help smiling, for, when I tried to explain myself, it seemed
to me that, in the depths of my heart, I was playing with words