"What is it you see?"
"You know it best; tell me what it is."
"It is a wedding. Don't you see the wedding dance?"
He had not got down from his horse; he had a feeling that if he had alighted she would have mounted. He tried now, leaning forward, to tell her how clearly he had seen the meaning, if so it might be called, of the natural fresco, and to find some words adequately to express his appreciation of its beauty. He knew that he had not expressed himself well, but she did not seem dissatisfied at the tribute he paid to a thing which she evidently regarded with personal love.
"Do you think," she said, "that it will alter soon, or become defaced? It has been just the same for a year. It might, you know, become defaced any day, and then no one would have seen it but ourselves. The islanders, you know, do not notice it."
"Ah, yes," said Caius; "beauty is made up of two parts—the objects seen and the understanding eye. We only know how much we are indebted to training and education when we find out to what extent the natural eye is blind."
This remark did not seem to interest her. He felt that it jarred somehow, and that she was wishing him away.
"But why," he asked, "should angels paint a marriage? They neither marry——" He stopped, feeling that she might think him flippant if he quoted the text.
"Because it is the best thing to paint," she said.
"How the best?"