The Worshipper of the Image

e name he had found for the Image, as we saw in the first chapter; and his love for Silencieux, begun more or less as a determined self-illusion, grew more and more of

st take away from Beatrice, from whom as the

l remained more to him than any other praise-this very industry was the secret confirmation for Beatrice's sad heart. No longer the inspirer, she was yet, she bitterly told herself, honoured among women as a critic. Her heart might bleed, and her eyes fill with tears, as he read; but then, as he would say, the Beauty, the Mus

atrice was beginning to bore him, not merely by her sadness, which his absorption prevented his realising except in flashes, but by her very resemblance to the Image-of which, from having been the beloved original, she was, in his eyes,

. During dinner the conscious side of his mind had been luxuriating in the romantic sound of "until the rising of the moon,"-for he was as yet a long way from being quite simple even wit

pen eyes magnifies her importance to his life. Antony but made believe and magnified uncommonly-and his dream of vivifying white plaster was perhaps less desperate

le, as Beatrice had divined, as Antony was learning, she was

ny entered his chalet Silencieux was already waiting for him, her head crowned