"Isn't it wonderful?" he said earnestly, trembling from head to foot. "Isn't it wonderful, dear?"
"Yes," she whispered. The word, uttered against his shoulder, was stifled. He bent his head nearer, murmuring:
"Thalomene—Thalomene—embodiment of Truth! How wonderful it is to me that at last I find in you that absolute Truth I worship."
"I am—the embodiment—of your—imagination," she said. "But you will never, never believe it—most adorable of boys—dearest—dearest of men."
And, lifting her stately and divine young head, she looked innocently at Brown while he imprinted his first and most chaste kiss upon the fresh, sweet lips of the tenth muse, Thalomene, daughter of Zeus.
"Athalie," said the youthful novelist more in[148] sorrow than in anger, "you are making game of everything I hold most important."
"Provide yourself with newer and truer gods, dear child," said the girl, laughing. "After you've worshipped them long enough somebody will also poke fun at them. Whereupon, if you are fortunate enough to be one of those who continues to mature until he matures himself into the Ewigkeit, you will instantly quit those same over-mauled and worn out gods for newer and truer ones."
"And so on indefinitely," I added.
"In literature," began the novelist, "the great masters must stand as parents for us in our first infantile steps——"