‘I come to see La Chicot simply because she is quite the most beautiful woman in face and form that I ever remember seeing. I come as a painter might to look at the perfection of human loveliness, or as an anatomist to contemplate the completeness of God’s work, a creature turned out of the divine workshop without a flaw.’
‘Did you ever hear such a fellow?’ cried Latimer. ‘He comes to look at a ballet-dancer, and talks about it as if it were a kind of religion.’
‘The worship of the beautiful is the religion of art,’ answered Gerard, gravely. ‘I respect La Chicot as much as I admire her. I have not an unworthy thought about her.’
Latimer touched his forehead lightly with two fingers, and looked at his friend Brown.
‘Gone!’ said Latimer.
‘Very far gone!’ replied Brown.
‘Come and try the Dutch oysters, Gerard, and let us make a night of it,’ said Latimer persuasively.
‘Thanks, no. I must go home to my den and read.’
And so they parted, the idlers to their pleasure, the plodding student—the man who loved work for its own sake—to his books.