inclination towards old men, not unusual in her sex, which is the truest
mark of real feminine nobility, and by which the woman is differentiated
from the female. Carlino had in his mind some inspired thoughts to which
he would give utterance, concerning this mystic sense which attracts the
girl of four and twenty to the man of ninety; a priest, on the verge of
the grave, but upheld by an indomitable spirit--unconquered as often
happens by the ravages of time. But how is all this to end? Neither
Noemi nor Jeanne could imagine. Well, Carlino had said from the first
that the fig and the bee could neither get up nor down. One consolation,
however, there was--the idea that a book must have a fitting end was a
mere vulgar prejudice. What is there in the world that really has an
end? That is all very well, said the girls, but the book must certainly
have some ending. The last scene, one of ineffable beauty, should
describe a walk at night and by moonlight through the streets of Bruges,
when the souls of the priest and the maiden should be revealed to one
another, and they should commune half as lovers, half dreaming like
prophets. The two should find themselves at midnight beside the sleeping
waters of the Lac d'Amour, listening in silence to the weird notes of
the _carillon_ under the clouds, and then should come to them the vague
revelation of a sexuality of their souls, of a future of love in the
star Fomalhaut.

"But why especially in Fomalhaut?" exclaimed Noemi.

"You are really intolerable," answered Carlino. "Because the name is so
delightful, it has the ring of a word congealed by German frost and then
melted by the Eastern sun."

"Nonsense! You are talking chemistry! I prefer Algol."