"Good--excellent," she approved. "But--but what do you mean by 'in a
sense'?"

"Ah," said he, darkly nodding, "I mean whole worlds by that."

"I don't understand," said she, her face prepared to fall.

"It isn't one woman--it's a score, a century, of the dear things," he
announced.

Her face fell. "Oh--?" she faltered.

"It's a love affair with a type," he explained.

She frowned upon him. "A love affair with a type--?"

"Yes," said he.

She shook her head. "I give you up. In one breath you speak like a
Mohammedan, in the next like--I don't know what."

"With these," said John, his band stretched towards the wall. "With the
type of the Quattrocento."

He got upon his feet, and moved from picture to picture; and a fire,
half indeed of mischief; but half it may be of real enthusiasm,
glimmered in his eyes.

"With these lost ladies of old years; these soft-coloured shadows, that