"Without a word?" "Without a word." "And this is the bouquet?" "Yes. It is the only souvenir I have of one who was dear to me. Whether I loved because I pitied or pitied because I loved I cannot say. There are some riddles which no one can solve." "You never tried?" "No. She was a noble woman, and her husband, too, was a decent fellow, as far as men go. They were admirably fitted by nature for each other, but matrimony dislocated them. That is another of the riddles that frustrate us." To avert further comment Bentham folded the page and lounged deeper into his chair, as though overcome by fatigue. Presently he resumed. "That is a pansy. It was pressed in a book. It marked the place. We read the poem together, she and I, that creature of warm wax pulsating with childish naivetes and provoking contrariety. We read it together in the orange gardens of the hotel looking out over a green transparency of[Pg 20] Mediterranean. I wonder if the scent of orange blossom, warmed by the breath of the sea, is an intoxicant, if it soaks in at the pores and quickens the veins to madness? Mine never seemed so palpitating with delirium as in those days with her by my side, and the free heavens and ocean for her setting. Yet she was ready to leave me without changing the indefinitude which always accompanied her words and actions, to leave me on the morrow—for I was anchored to a studio and some commissions to which I was pledged. But though she had a certain prosaic flippancy of speech which spelt discouragement, my heart refused a literal translation of her idiom. On the last day I determined to sound her, and subtly contrived to wrest her attention with this poem. We read it together. Her soft cheek neared mine with a downy magnetism, and vagrant fibrils of tawny hair danced with the wind against my ear. After the second verse I placed this pansy as a mile-stone to colour our travels on the open page. She assisted me to flatten the curling leaves, and my huge hand extinguished her tiny one. Then I whispered—oh,[Pg 21] never mind what I whispered—it was a line of nature that the artistic reserve of the poet had omitted. She closed the book and covered her face with her hands to hide the trouble and
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