“ ‘He’s got beautiful eyes,’ said my other sister.

“ ‘And a real darling nose and chin!’ cried Beatrice. ‘If only he was more solide! He is like a windmill, all limbs.’

“ ‘He will fill out. Remember, he’s not quite seventeen,’ said my elder sister.

“ ‘Ah, he is doux—he is câlin,’ said Beatrice.

“ ‘I think he is rather too spoony for his age,’ said my elder sister.

“ ‘But he’s a fine boy for all that. See how thick his knees are,’ my younger sister chimed in.

“ ‘Ah, si, si!’ cried Beatrice.

“I made a row against the door, then walked across.

“ ‘Hello, is somebody in here?’ I said, as I pushed into the little conservatory.

“I looked straight at Beatrice, and she at me. We seemed to have formed an alliance in that look: she was the other half of my consciousness, I of hers. Ha, ha! there were a lot of white narcissus, and little white hyacinths, Roman hyacinths, in the conservatory. I can see them now, great white stars, and tangles of little ones, among a bank of green; and I can recall the keen, fresh scent on the warm air; and the look of Beatrice…her great dark eyes.

“It’s funny, but that Beatrice is as dead—ay, far more dead—than Dante’s. And I am not that young fool, not a bit.

“I was very romantic, fearfully emotional, and the soul of honour. Beatrice said nobody cared a thing about her. FitzHerbert was always jaunting off, the mother was a fretful invalid. So I was seventeen, earning half a guinea a week, and she was eighteen,