Maria Dolores leaned back, softly laughing.

"Your infatuation for the earth is so great," she said, "mightn't your
lady-love, if she suspected it, be jealous?"

"No," said John, "it is the earth that might be jealous, for, until I
saw my lady-love, she was the undivided mistress of my heart. For the
rest, my lady-love enjoys, upon this point, my entire confidence. I have
kept nothing from her."

"That is well," approved Maria Dolores. "And the sky and the sea," still
softly laughing, she asked, "have they no place in your affections?

"The sky is her tiring-maiden, and I love the sky for that," said John.
"'Tis the sky that clothes her in her many-coloured raiment, and holds
the light whereby her beauty is made manifest. And the sea is a jewel
that she bears upon her bosom,--a magical jewel, whence, with the sky's
aid, she draws the soft rain that is her scent and her cosmetic.
'Fragrant the fertile earth after soft showers.' Do you know, I could
almost forgive the dour and detestable Milton everything for the sake of
those seven words. They show that in the sense of smell he had at least
one attribute of humanity."

Maria Dolores' dark eyes were quizzical.

"The dour and detestable Milton?" she exclaimed. "Poor Milton! What has
he done to merit such anathema?

"It isn't what he has done, but what he was," said John. "That he was
dour nobody will deny, dour and sour and inhuman. Ask those unfortunate,