"It is a favorite walk of mine," he said.
"Yes, it is pleasant. You bring a companion with you," she remarked, pointing to his book.
He glanced down at it, and then up at her again.
"Yes; a faithful friend, too. We spend a good deal of time out of doors together."
She read the title, and glanced up at him with a shade of interest in her face.
"Shelley was a great poet, I suppose," she said; "but I do not understand him."
For the first time his expression changed. A sudden light swept across his face, and in a moment it was glowing with sensibility and enthusiasm. She looked at him astonished. He stood before her revealed in a new light, and, although unwillingly, she saw him with different eyes.
"Not understand Shelley! Ah! but that is because you have not tried, then. If you had, you would not only understand, but you would love him."
She shook her head. In reality she felt that he was right, that her languid attempts to read him by a drawing-room fire, with the Queen beside her, and her mind very full of very little things, had not been the spirit in which to approach a great poet. But, partly out of womanly perversity, and partly out of curiosity to hear what he would say, she chose to dissent from him.
"I find him too mystical," she said; "too incomprehensible."