"When I was in Heidelberg——" said Cornelius, in the same mood of retrospective meditation.
"There was a model—a young artist's model——"
"There was a little country girl——"
"With the darkest eyes, and hair of a deep blue-black, the kind of colour one seems only to read of or to see in a picture."
"With blue eyes as limpid as the waters of the Neckar, and light-brown hair which caught the sunshine in a way that one seldom seems to see, but which we poets sometimes sing of."
Then they both started and looked at each other guiltily.
"Cornelius," said Humphrey, "I think that Phillis would not like these reminiscences. We must offer virgin hearts."
"True, brother," said Cornelius with a sigh, "We must. Yet the recollection is not unpleasant."
They went to bed early, only concentrating into two hours the brandy-and-soda of four. It was a wonderful thing that neither gave the other the least hint of a separate and individual preference for Phillis. They were running together, as usual, in double harness, and so far as might be gathered from their conversation they were proposing to themselves that both should marry Phillis.
They dressed with more than usual care in the morning, and, without taking their customary walk, sat each in his own room till two o'clock, when Humphrey sought Cornelius in the Workshop.