the sparkle of the new beauty and truth they loved. She knew little
intimate anecdotes of the poets and painters they loved, piquant gossip
and brilliant _mots_; and then she was one of those women who are like
incense in a room, enriching by her very presence, exhaling mystery and
distinction, like a pomander of strange spices.

You might love her for a long time or a little, but love her you were
obliged to while you were with her, whoever else you loved too. There
was no other word for it. Even little James Whalley had conscience-pangs
as he looked at Isabel, for he had been engaged for five years; but the
poet's heart, that is, all the combustible portion of it, was already
burnt to a cinder. Poets' hearts, however, are used to burning. The
inflammable air of sighs about them is ever in a perpetual state of
ignition; so it has come, no doubt, from long custom, that nature has
made them at their centre as fireproof as the phoenix. Otherwise,
indeed, the poetic life would be impossible to live; poets could not go
on maintaining the deadly fire of love, to which it is one of the
conditions of their precarious art that they must daily expose
themselves. Sometimes, indeed, as we know, even these firemen of the
emotions dare the burning house once too often, and we hear their
death-song amid the flames.

Theophil?

Well, we can talk of Theophil again. Meanwhile Jenny was as much in love
with her herself, and he held Jenny's hand and loved her, O yes, so
dearly--and was quite safe. Fear not, little Jenny; it was only death,
you remember, that was to separate Jenny and Theophil.

Mrs. Talbot--if she won't bore you--had made an interesting remark. She