[_To THE MARCHESE GIOVANNI VISCONTI VENOSTA_]


Matthew half shut his eyes--as he always did when he particularly wanted
to see.

"For the first time in my life," he said, "I regret my myopia.
Confronted with this room, imagination pales before sight."

Virginia looked round--at the strawberry ice brocade, at the gilt, at
the Bouchers--so painstaking and so painful--at the palms that seemed to
conceal manicurists and barbers.

"Look," he continued, "at our hostess. I am sure her ears and her nose
take off at night. Her hair is a libel on horsehair and dye."

"Oh,"--Virginia's smile was playing like a light over his face--"think
of the days when her eyes were like stars and her ears like shells and
her hair was curling all over the place."

"Virginia," his voice was tender, "where you are there are no more
palms, wigs turn into hair, rouge into blushes----"

"Matthew," she said, "you are a romantic and I am the only person in the
world who knows it."

"You are the only person in the world with whom I am in love."

"For the moment."