surprise.

"But, man, do you know that I have discovered my motive in it?"

"What do you mean?" asked Ernest, looking first at Reginald and then at
Walkham, whose sanity he began to doubt.

"Listen!"

And the sculptor read, trembling with emotion, a long passage whose
measured cadence delighted Ernest's ear, without, however, enlightening
his mind as to the purport of Walkham's cryptic remark.

Reginald said nothing, but the gleam in his eye showed that this time,
at least, his interest was alert.

Walkham saw the hopelessness of making clear his meaning without an
explanation.

"I forget you haven't a sculptor's mind. I am so constituted that, with
me, all impressions are immediately translated into the sense of form. I
do not hear music; I see it rise with domes and spires, with painted
windows and Arabesques. The scent of the rose is to me tangible. I can
almost feel it with my hand. So your prose suggested to me, by its
rhythmic flow, something which, at first indefinite, crystallised
finally into my lost conception of Narcissus."

"It is extraordinary," murmured Reginald. "I had not dreamed of it."

"So you do not think it rather fantastic?" remarked Ernest,