"Here you are, then, till she gets back?"

"There's no one else."

"But, as a parent, infinitely preferable to the righteous," he
murmured. "And you--"

"I think mother's perfect," she answered simply.

He shook his head. "You won't succeed at it, though. Your mother,
for example, isn't dark."

"The loveliest gold hair," she said ecstatically. "She's much much
prettier than I'll ever be."

"Prettier, yes. The trouble is, you are lovely, magical. You will
stay for a lifetime in the memory. The merest touch of you will be
more potent than any duty or fidelity. A man's only salvation will
be his blindness."

Although she didn't understand a word of this, Linda liked to hear
him; he was talking as though she were grown up, and in response to
the flattery she was magnetic and eager.

"One time," he said, "very long ago, beauty was worshiped. Men, you
see, know better now. They want their dollar's worth. The world was
absolutely different then--there were deep adventurous forests with
holy chapels in the green combe for an orison, and hermits rising to
Paradise on the _Te Deum Laudamus_ of the angels and archangels.
There were black castles and, in the broad meadows, silk tents with