"I cannot quite tell," she said; "but I am sure she would not
look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look
more beautiful than she is. And then, you know, you began by
being in love with her before you saw her beauty, mistaking her
for the lady of the marble--another kind altogether, I should
think. But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this:
that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man;
and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him
and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that
she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the
admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely--with a self-
destructive beauty, though; for it is that which is constantly
wearing her away within, till, at last, the decay will reach her
face, and her whole front, when all the lovely mask of nothing
will fall to pieces, and she be vanished for ever. So a wise
man, whom she met in the wood some years ago, and who, I think,
for all his wisdom, fared no better than you, told me, when, like
you, he spent the next night here, and recounted to me his
adventures."

I thanked her very warmly for her solution, though it was but
partial; wondering much that in her, as in woman I met on my
first entering the forest, there should be such superiority to
her apparent condition. Here she left me to take some rest;
though, indeed, I was too much agitated to rest in any other way
than by simply ceasing to move.

In half an hour, I heard a heavy step approach and enter the
house. A jolly voice, whose slight huskiness appeared to proceed