"Ay, to a man of taste."
"Beauty of course is a spirit interpenetrating all that delights and elevates. But she is incarnate too, sometimes; falling, I suppose, from the heavens like that meteor there," I said, pointing to an exhalation that rushed with yellow tresses streaming through the dark; "and taking the shape of a woman when she touches the earth."
"But is not innocence a condition of beauty?" he inquired, turning his dusky gaze upon me.
"It should be."
"Then do not make your spirit take the shape of woman."
I laughed. "What shape would you have her?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I hardly know," he answered: "unless you make her a new-born babe."
"I fear you have the scholar's contempt for the tendre passion," said I. "But listen now to a strange story. Do you see those trees yonder?"
"Yes, Sir."