She sat still for a minute, then she laughed.

"I have always said that so long as one is with a doctor, _qua_ doctor,
one must never think of him as a man," she said; "but--"

"Don't think of me as a man."

"Unfortunately, there is something about you which absolutely prevents
me from regarding you as a machine. But--never mind!"

She turned to the light, lifted her thin veil, and leaned towards him.

"Do you think I look ill?"

He gazed at her steadily, with a scrutiny that was almost cruel. The
face presented to him in the bold light that flowed in through the large
window near which their chairs were placed still preserved elements of
the beauty of which the world had heard too much. Its shape, like the
shape of Mrs. Chepstow's head, was exquisite. The line of the features
was not purely Greek, but it recalled things Greek, profiles in marble
seen in calm museums. The outline of a thing can set a sensitive heart
beating with the strange, the almost painful longing for an ideal life,
with ideal surroundings, ideal loves, ideal realizations. It can call to
the imagination that lies drowsing, yet full of life, far down in the
secret recesses of the soul. The curve of Mrs. Chepstow's face, the
modelling of her low brow, and the undulations of the hair that flowed
away from it--although, alas! that hair was obviously, though very
perfectly, dyed--had this peculiar power of summons, sent forth silently
this subtle call. The curve of a Dryad's face, seen dimly in the green