Page:Hichens - The Green Carnation.djvu/213

Rh of Nature, instead of the faithful friend. No, I did not like the lecture, if one can like or dislike a mere absurdity. Tell me, Lord Reggie, are you self-consciously absurd?"

He drew his chair a little nearer to hers.

"I don't know," he said; "I hope I am beautiful. If I am beautiful, that is all I wish for. To be beautiful is to be complete. To be clever is easy enough. To be beautiful is so difficult, that even Byron had a club foot with all his genius. Cleverness can be acquired. Hundreds of stupid people nowadays acquire the faculty of cleverness. That is why society is so boring. You find people practising mental scales and five-finger exercises at every party you go to. The true artist will never practise. How soft this twilight is, though not so delicate and subtle as that in Millet's 'Angelus.' Lady Locke, I have something to tell you, and I will tell it to you now, while the stars come out, and the shadows steal from their homes in the trees. Esmé said to-day that marriage was a brilliant absurdity. Will you be brilliantly absurd? Will you marry me?"

He leaned forward, and took her hand rather negligently in his small and soft one. His face was calm, and he spoke in a clear and