'Yes, I do. But you never can understand an impersonal admiration for anything. You say I do not appreciate beauty in women because I do not marry. You say I am determined on becoming a monk, because I admire monastic life.'

'But are you going to become a monk?' 'I am not sure that I should not prefer the world to be my monastery.'

'Now you are talking nonsense.'

'Now you are beginning to be rude, mother. … We were discussing the question of beauty in women.'

'Well, what fault, I should like to know, do you find with Lucy?'

John laughed, and after a moment's hesitation, he said—

'Her face is a pretty oval, but it conveys nothing to my mind; her eyes are large and soft, but there is no, no—-' John gesticulated with his fingers.

'No what?'

'No beyond.'

'No what?'