"It iss no baraseet," he explained, in a mellow falsetto, "it iss an
epipheet!"

"An air-plant!" said his fair worshipper, softly drinking in a bosomful of
gladness as she made the distance between them more discreet.

Distances were all one to him. He seemed like a burnt log, still in shape
but gone to ashes, except in one warm spot where glowed this self-
consuming, world-sacrificing adoration of knowledge; knowledge sought, as
I say, purely for its own sake and narrowed down to names and technical
descriptions. Men of _perverted_ principles and passions you may find
anywhere; but I never had seen anyone so totally undeveloped in all the
emotions, affections, tastes that make life _life_.



IV


A few afternoons later I went to his house. For pretext I carried a huge
green worm, but I went mainly to see just how unluckily he was married. He
was not at home. I found his partner a small, bright, toil-worn, pretty
woman of hardly twenty-eight or nine, whose two or three children had died
in infancy, and who had blended wifehood and motherhood together, and was
taking care of the Baron as a widow would care for a crippled son, and at
the same time reverencing him as if he were a demigod. Of his utter
failure to provide their daily living she confessed herself by every
implication, simply--proud! What else should a demigod's wife expect? At
the same time, without any direct statement, she made it clear that she