or (according to Bastin) a conventional golden-harped and haloed

immortality, a word of which he did not in the least understand
the meaning?

Or was it something quite different from either of these,
something vast and splendid beyond the reach of vision,

something God-sent, beginning and ending in the Eternal Absolute
and at last partaking of His attributes and nature and from aeon

to aeon shot through with His light? And how was the truth to be
learned? I asked my Eastern friends, and they talked vaguely of

long ascetic preparation, of years upon years of learning, from
whom I could not quite discover. I was sure it could not be from

them, because clearly they did not know; they only passed on what
they had heard elsewhere, when or how they either could not or

would not explain. So at length I gave it up, having satisfied
myself that all this was but an effort of Oriental imagination

called into life by the sweet influences of the Eastern stars.
I gave it up and went away, thinking that I should forget. But

I did not forget. I was quick with a new hope, or at any rate
with a new aspiration, and that secret child of holy desire grew

and grew within my soul, till at length it flashed upon me that
this soul of mine was itself the hidden Master from which I must

learn my lesson. No wonder that those Eastern friends could not
give his name, seeing that whatever they really knew, as

distinguished from what they had heard, and it was little enough,
each of them had learned from the teaching of his own soul.

Thus, then, I too became a dreamer with only one longing, the
longing for wisdom, for that spirit touch which should open my

eyes and enable me to see.
Yet now it happened strangely enough that when I seemed within

myself to have little further interest in the things of the
world, and least of all in women, I, who had taken another guest

to dwell with me, those things of the world came back to me and
in the shape of Woman the Inevitable. Probably it was so decreed

since is it not written that no man can live to himself alone, or
lose himself in watching and nurturing the growth of his own

soul?
It happened thus. I went to Rome on my way home from India, and

stayed there a while. On the day after my arrival I wrote my name
in the book of our Minister to Italy at that time, Sir Alfred

Upton, not because I wished him to ask me to dinner, but for the
reason that I had heard of him as a man of archeological tastes

and thought that he might enable me to see things which otherwise
I should not see.

As it chanced he knew about me through some of my Devonshire
neighbours who were friends of his, and did ask me to dinner on

the following night. I accepted and found myself one of a
considerable party, some of them distinguished English people who

wore Orders, as is customary when one dines with the
representative of our Sovereign. Seeing these, and this shows

that in the best of us vanity is only latent, for the first time
in my life I was sorry that I had none and was only plain Mr.

Arbuthnot who, as Sir Alfred explained to me politely, must go in
to dinner last, because all the rest had titles, and without even

a lady as there was not one to spare.
Nor was my lot bettered when I got there, as I found myself

seated between an Italian countess and a Russian prince, neither
of whom could talk English, while, alas, I knew no foreign

language, not even French in which they addressed me, seeming
surprised that I did not understand them. I was humiliated at my

own ignorance, although in fact I was not ignorant, only my
education had been classical" target="_blank" title="a.经典的；传统的">classical. Indeed I was a good classic and had

kept up my knowledge more or less, especially since I became an
idle man. In my confusion it occurred to me that the Italian

countess might know Latin from which her own language was
derived, and addressed her in that tongue. She stared, and Sir

Alfred, who was not far off and overheard me (he also knew
Latin), burst into laughter and proceeded to explain the joke in

a loud voice, first in French and then in English, to the
assembled company, who all became infected with merriment and

also stared at me as a curiosity.
Then it was that for the first time I saw Natalie, for owing to

a mistake of my driver I had arrived rather late and had not been
introduced to her. As her father's only daughter, her mother

being dead, she was seated at the end of the table behind a
fan-like arrangement of white Madonna lilies, and she had bent

forward and, like the others, was looking at me, but in such a
fashion that her head from that distance seemed as though it were

surrounded and crowned with lilies. Indeed the greatest art could
not have produced a more beautiful effect which was, however,

really one of naked accident.
An angel looking down upon earth through the lilies of

Heaven--that was the rather absurd thought which flashed into my
mind. I did not quite realise her face at first except that it

seemed to be both dark and fair; as a fact her waving hair which
grew rather low upon her forehead, was dark, and her large, soft

eyes were grey. I did not know, and to this moment I do not know
if she was really beautiful, but certainly the light that shone

through those eyes of hers and seemed to be reflected upon her
delicate features, was beauty itself. It was like that glowing

through a thin vase of the purest alabaster within which a lamp
is placed, and I felt this effect to arise from no chance, like

that of the lily-setting, but, as it were, from the lamp of the
spirit within.

Our eyes met, and I suppose that she saw the wonder and
admiration in mine. At any rate her amused smile faded, leaving

the face rather serious, though still sweetly serious, and a
tinge of colour crept over it as the first hue of dawn creeps

into a pearly sky. Then she withdrew herself behind the screen of
lilies and for the rest of that dinner which I thought was never

coming to an end, practically I saw her no more. Only I noted as
she passed out that although not tall, she was rounded and

graceful in shape and that her hands were peculiarly delicate.
Afterwards in the drawing-room her father, with whom I had

talked at the table, introduced me to her, saying:
"My daughter is the real archaeologist, Mr. Arbuthnot, and I

think if you ask her, she may be able to help you."
Then he bustled away to speak to some of his important guests,

from whom I think he was seeking political information.
"My father exaggerates," she said in a soft and very

sympathetic voice, "but perhaps"--and she motioned me to a seat
at her side.

Then we talked of the places and things that I more
particularly desired to see and, well, the end of it was that I

went back to my hotel in love with Natalie; and as she afterwards
confessed, she went to bed in love with me.

It was a curious business, more like meeting a very old friend
from whom one had been separated by circumstances for a score of

years or so than anything else. We were, so to speak, intimate
from the first; we knew all about each other, although here and

there was something new, something different which we could not
remember, lines of thought, veins of memory which we did not

possess in common. On one point I am absolutely clear: it was not
solely the everyday and ancient appeal of woman to man and man to

woman which drew us together, though doubtless this had its part
in our attachment as under our human conditions it must do,

seeing that it is Nature's bait to ensure the continuance of the
race. It was something more, something quite beyond that

elementary impulse.