admit it to himself, Beatrice 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, becoming an indifferent
materialisation. The sweet flesh he had loved so tenderly became an
offence to him, as a medium too gross for the embodiment of so beautiful
a face. Such a face as Silencieux's demanded a more celestial porcelain.

Dinner at last finished, he made an excuse to Beatrice for leaving her
alone once more at the end as he had during all the rest of the day,
and hastened to keep his tryst with Silencieux. 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 with Silencieux,--and the idea of his going out with
serious eagerness to meet one who, if she was as he knew a living being,
was an image too, delighted his sense of fantastic make-believe.

There is in all love that element of make-believe. Every woman who is
loved is partly the creation of her lover's fancy. He consciously
siderealises her, and with open 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 than the dreams of
some, that would breathe the breath of life into the colder clay of some
beloved woman, who seems spontaneously to live but is dead all the
while.

Silencieux appeared to be dead, but beneath that eternal smile, as
Beatrice had divined, as Antony was learning, she was only too terribly
alive. Yes! Antony's was the easier dream.