'Yes,' I replied, with my hand on the door-handle, and added
curiously, for it was an odd word in Cecily's mouth, 'Why?'

She hardly hesitated. 'Oh,' she said, 'I am just writing down one
or two things Mr. Tottenham said about Agra before I forget them.
They seemed so true.'

'He has a descriptive touch,' I remarked.

'I think he describes beautifully. Would you like to hear what he
said today?'

'I would,' I replied, sincerely.

'"Agra,"' read this astonishing young lady, '"is India's one pure
idyll. Elsewhere she offers other things, foolish opulence, tawdry
pageant, treachery of eunuchs and jealousies of harems, thefts of
kings' jewels and barbaric retributions; but they are all actual,
visualized, or part of a past that shows to the backward glance
hardly more relief and vitality than a Persian painting"--I should
like to see a Persian painting--"but here the immortal tombs and
pleasure-houses rise out of colour delicate and subtle; the vision
holds across three hundred years; the print of the court is still in
the dust of the city."'

'Did you really let him go on like that?' I exclaimed. 'It has the
license of a lecture!'

'I encouraged him to. Of course he didn't say it straight off. He