was I not detestable too? so stubborn, so wilful, so demented,
so--vain?"

"You were vain," I answered, "because--"

"Well?" she said, and the melody died out, and the lower voices of her
music complained softly on.

"For a barrier," I answered.

"A barrier?" she cried.

"Why, yes," I said, "a barrier against cant, and flummery, and
coldness, and pride, and against--why, against your own vanity too."

"That's really very clever--penetrating," she said; "and I really
desired to know, not because I did not know already, but to know I
knew all. You are a perspicacious observer, Mr. Brocken; and to be
that is to be alive in a world of the moribund. But then too how high
one must soar at times; for one must ever condescend in order to
observe faithfully. At any rate, to observe all one must range at an
altitude above all."

"And so," I said, "you have taken your praise from me--"

"But you are a man, and I a woman: we look with differing eyes, each
sex to the other, and perceive by contrast. Else--why, how else could
you forgive my presumption? He sees me as an eagle sees the creeping
tortoise. I see him as the moon the sun, never weary of gazing. I
borrow his radiance to observe him by. But I weary you with my