CHAPTER VIII.
"IN THE STARLIGHT."
The night was very still. The soft breeze was not strong enough to stir even the slender palms which rose on all sides, and whose outlines, above the surrounding foliage, framed the starlit sky. The palace stood on high ground, and the garden sloped on the western side towards the sea. At the end of the terrace was a stone seat.
"Let us sit here," said Lucile.
They sat down. The dreamy music of a waltz floated down as a distant accompaniment to their thoughts. The windows of the palace blazed with light and suggested glitter, glare, and heat; in the garden all was quiet and cool.
"Why do you sneer at honour?" asked Lucile, thinking of the interrupted conversation.
"Because it has no true foundation, no ultra-human sanction. Its codes are constantly changing with times and places. At one time it is thought more honourable to kill the man you have wronged than to make amends; at another it is more important to pay a bookmaker than a butcher. Like art it changes with human caprice, and like art it comes from opulence and luxury."
"But why do you claim a higher origin for beauty and honesty?"
"Because, wherever I have looked, I see that all things are perpetually referred to an eternal standard of fitness, and that right triumphs over wrong, truth over falsehood, beauty over ugliness. Fitness is the general expression! Judged by this standard art and honour have little value."