"Yes."
She considered for a long while, then, looking up, she nodded.
"That's fine!" exclaimed Brown, with enthusiasm.
They walked back to the Villa Hibiscus together, slowly, through the blue starlight. Brown asked her name, and she told him.
"No," he said gaily, "your name is Thalomene,[134] and you are the tenth muse. For truly I think I have never before been so thoroughly inspired by a talk with anyone."
She laughed. He had done almost all the talking. And he continued it, very happily, as by common consent they seated themselves on the veranda.[135]
XV
The inhabitants of the Villa Hibiscus retired. But Brown talked on, quite unconscious that the low-voiced questions and softly modulated replies were magic which incited him to a perfect ecstasy of self-revelation.