Her black eyes snapped. She waved her hands urgently towards
the window.

Peter languidly got up, languidly crossed the room, looked out.

There were, in truth, thousands of them, thousands and
thousands of tiny primrose flames, circling, fluttering,
rising, sinking, in the purple blackness of the night, like
snowflakes in a wind, palpitating like hearts of living
gold--Jove descending upon Danae invisible.

"Son carin', eh?" cried eager Marietta.

"Hum--yes--pretty enough," he grudgingly acknowledged. "But
even so?" the ingrate added, as he turned away, and let himself
drop back into his lounging-chair. "My dear good woman, no
amount of prettiness can disguise the fundamental banality of
things. Your fireflies--St. Dominic's beads, if you like--and,
apropos of that, do you know what they call them in America?
--they call them lightning-bugs, if you can believe me--remark
the difference between southern euphuism and western bluntness
--your fireflies are pretty enough, I grant. But they are
tinsel pasted on the Desert of Sahara. They are condiments
added to a dinner of dust and ashes. Life, trick it out as you
will, is just an incubus--is just the Old Man of the Sea.
Language fails me to convey to you any notion how heavily he
sits on my poor shoulders. I thought I had suffered from ennui
in my youth. But the malady merely plays with the green fruit;
it reserves its serious ravages for the ripe. I can promise