"At least the type never recedes," he prompted.
"Oh, it began good," she cried, as though at a discovery, "and can never go back of that original good. Something keeps it from going below a certain point, and it is left to us to lift it higher and higher. No, the type can't be bad. Of course the type is more important than the individual. And that something that keeps it from going below a certain point is God."
"Or nature."
"So that God and nature," she cried again, "work together? No, no, they are one and the same thing."
"There, don't you see," he remarked, smiling back at her, "how simple it is?"
"Oh-h," exclaimed Laura, with a deep breath, "isn't it beautiful?" She put her hand to her forehead with a little laugh of deprecation. "My," she said, "but those things make you think."
Dinner was over before she was aware of it, and they were still talking animatedly as they rose from the table.
"We will have our coffee in the art gallery," Laura said, "and please smoke."
He lit a cigarette, and the two passed into the great glass-roofed rotunda.
"Here is the one I like best," said Laura, standing before the Bougereau.