"So you are pleased to say."
"She is exceedingly pretty."
"Oh!"
"Do you not think she has the loveliest eyes in the world?"
"Yes."
"A complexion of the most dazzling whiteness?... I was reminded of a Persian ghazel, wherein a lover extols the fineness of his mistress's skin. 'When she drinks red wine,' he said, 'you see it pass down her throat.' The panna Iwinska made me think of those Persian lines."
"Mlle. Ioulka may possibly embody that phenomenon; but I do not know if she has any blood in her veins.... She has no heart.... She is as white and as cold as snow!"
He rose and walked round the room some time without speaking, as though to hide his emotion; then, stopping suddenly—
"Pardon me," he said, "we were talking, I believe, of folk-poetry...."
"We were, Your Excellency."