own--only, if she is wise she will hide all these things in her heart, for
the average man cannot stand this great light of her sweetness, and when
her love becomes selfless, his love will wane."

"The average man's--yes, perhaps so," agreed Paul. "But then, what does the
average person of either sex know of love at all?"

"They think they know," she said. "Really think it, but love like ours
happens perhaps once in a century, and generally makes history of some
sort--bad or good."

"Let it!" said Paul. "I am like Antony in that poem you read me last
night. I must have you for my own, 'Though death, dishonour, anything you
will, stand in the way.' He knew what he was talking about, Antony! so did
the man who wrote the poem!"

"He was a great sculptor as well as a poet," the lady said. "And yes, he
knew all about those wonderful lovers better far than your Shakespeare did,
who leaves me quite cold when I read his view of them. Cleopatra was to me
so subtle, so splendid a queen."

"Of course she was just you, my heart," said Paul. "You are her soul living
over again, and that poem you must give me to keep some day, because it
says just what I shall want to say if ever I must be away from you for a
time. See, have I remembered it right?

"'Tell her, till I see Those eyes, I do not live--that Rome to me Is
hateful,--tell her--oh!--I know not what--That every thought and feeling,
space and spot, Is like an ugly dream where she is not; All persons
plagues; all living wearisome; All talking empty...'.