“Not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain,”
he said to himself, and then before his watching eyes there seemed to be mimicked forth all the brave-hearted struggle of humanity towards the light, which, alas! too often scorched and blasted those nearest to it. Well, was it better, he wondered, to have endured and known the full radiance for an instant, even if the moment after the wings were folded for ever, or was it wiser to be content upon the dimmer plane as those little creatures were who ran about the table-top instead of striving upward to the light? But happily, as he looked at these latter ones, his attention was diverted from the more painful problem, as his eyes, always delicately sensitive to the beauty of little things, dwelt with delight upon the exquisite, fragile little creatures.
How marvellously their delicate wings were poised and proportioned! Some had the texture of velvet and some the sheen of satin; and nature, out of sheer extravagance, had touched them with gold and powdered them with silver. And did ever lord or lady bear a plume so daintily poised as those little creatures bore their delicate antennæ? And presently a white creature fluttered in from the bosom of the darkness, a large albino moth with a body covered with white fur and two fern-like antennæ; white as a snow-flake it rested upon the green baize.
Just then Vashti entered, coming up to his table in her stately fashion.
“How foolish you are to sit with your window open,” she said. “Don’t you know that the light attracts all those insects?”
Sidney had risen when his wife entered the room. He was almost courtly in his politeness to her. But it was so natural for him to be courteous that all little formalities were graceful as he observed them.