“It is very strange,” said Theophil, still fascinated.  Then he told this image of Jenny the story of how Jenny had died.  The tears came into the actress’s eyes as he talked, and it was as though Jenny shed tears for Jenny’s death.

“Poor little girl!” she said; “I am so sorry for you both.”

“But,” she continued presently, “you should both be very happy too—­for it would be worth while to suffer for so beautiful a love....  I feel happy,” she added half gaily, “even to resemble a woman who is so wonderfully loved.”

Theophil lingered on, still fascinated, till the actress suggested that he should walk with her to her hotel.  Arrived there, Theophil, to the possible scandalising of Coalchester, accepted her invitation to a further chat over supper; and when at last he was back at Zion Place, his heart was aware of a new comfort and a new pain.  He had leaned his head on a woman’s kind shoulder, and she had let him talk and talk about Jenny; but her shoulder had been warm, and it had been sweet to be near her ...

     “A creature might forget to weep who bore;
     Thy comfort long” ...

and Theophil went to sleep that night with the taste of honey upon his lips.

But with the morning there came to him remorseful misgivings, and he told himself that it had been one of the sophistries of the flesh, a call of the senses taking in vain the sacred name of Jenny; and then for his comfort he remembered how the greatest of all lovers, Dante, had craved in like manner for the solace of “a very pitiful lady, very young,” and had been similarly remorseful on account of his momentary preoccupation with her.

Taking down his “Vita Nuova,” he read:  “At length, by the constant sight of this lady, mine eyes began to be gladdened overmuch with her company; through which thing many times I had much unrest, and rebuked myself as a base person:  also, many times I cursed the unsteadfastness of mine eyes, and said to them inwardly:  ’Was not your grievous condition of weeping wont one while to make others weep?  And will ye now forget this thing because a lady looketh upon you? who so looketh merely in compassion of the grief ye then showed for your own blessed lady.  But what so ye can, that do ye, accursed eyes! many a time will I make you remember it! for never, till death dry you up, should ye make an end of your weeping.’”

Moreover, Dante had married Gemma within a year of the death of Beatrice, and had even lived so scandalously meanwhile as to bring down upon him the stern reproof of his friend Guido Calvancanti; yet the world still regards him as the type of all faithful lovers.  Faithfulness is an attitude of the mind, and all it touches turns to Beatrice.  Yet—­

     “Except by death, we must not any way
     Forget our lady who is gone from us.”

CHAPTER XXVII

ISABEL CALLING