Martelli was in the library when I entered. He sat deep in an arm-chair, his legs crossed, his face hid behind a folio.
"I have seen my apparition," said I cheerfully.
"I guessed so by the time you were absent," he answered, looking at the clock.
"I hope my resolute behaviour vindicates my courage, or at least excuses my former fears."
"You have renewed the pretty ancient legend, and have changed your shape of marble into a breathing woman. It certainly shows some hardihood and much tact to have penetrated into her presence. She seems, by your account, to have taken the white veil of solitude, and is dead to all the world."
"After an interview with a beautiful woman," I cried effusively, looking round upon the bookshelves, "how flat, stale, weary, and unprofitable appears everything else! The dead are all very well in their way—nil nisi bonum—but there is something in the large black eye of a woman—a divinity, a power, an inspiration—that makes poetry, philosophy and the fine arts very second-rate, somehow."
"No, Sir; the rate is not changed; it is a only temporary eclipse—a shadow dimming a light."
"Well," said I, "for my part, I adore black eyes; I refer particularly to Mrs. Fraser's. If I were called upon to name the most harmonious contrast in the world, I should say black eyes and yellow hair. Oh! she is the loveliest, the most fascinating, the wildest, sweetest, strangest woman in the wide world!"
"Your interview has been satisfactory, I presume?" he remarked drily. "She must have been prepared for your visit and met you with the most polished and facile of her arts.
"There was nothing polished or facile about her. On the contrary, she was rude."