“Fair, but not your ‘ideal woman,’” she said, gently.

“No, not my ‘ideal woman,’” he returned; “my sister, my friend—­not my love.”

“I am to blame,” she said, proudly; “but again I must plead that I am like Priscilla.  While you are pleading the cause of another, the truth came uppermost; you must forgive me for speaking so forcibly.  As the poem says: 

    “’There are moments in life when the heart is so full of emotions
    That if, by chance, it be shaken, or into its depths, like a pebble,
    Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
    Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.’”

“My dearest Philippa, you have not been to blame,” he said; “you judge yourself so hardly always.”

“It is the fate of a woman to be silent,” she said again.  “Still, I am glad that I have spoken.  Norman, will you tell me what your ideal of woman is like, that I may know her when I see her?”

“Nay,” he objected, gently, “let us talk of something else.”

But she persisted.

“Tell me,” she urged, “that I may know in what she differs from me.”

“I do not know that I can tell you,” he replied.  “I have not thought much of the matter.”

“But if any one asked you to describe your ideal of what a woman should be, you could do it,” she pursued.

“Perhaps so, but at best it would be but an imperfect sketch.  She must be young, fair, gentle, pure, tender of heart, noble in soul, with a kind of shy, sweet grace; frank, yet not outspoken; free from all affectation, yet with nothing unwomanly; a mixture of child and woman.  If I love an ideal, it is something like that.”

“And she must be fair, like all the ladies Arleigh, with eyes like the hyacinth, and hair tinged with gold, I suppose, Norman?”

“Yes; I saw a picture once in Borne that realized my notion of true womanly loveliness.  It was a very fair face, with something of the innocent wonder of a child mixed with the dawning love and passion of noblest womanhood.”

“You admire an ingenue.  We have both our tastes; mine, if I were a man, would incline more to the brilliant and handsome.”

She would have added more, but at that moment Lady Peters drew aside the silken hanging.

“My dear children,” she said, “I should ill play my part of chaperon if I did not remind you of the hour.  We have been celebrating my birthday, but my birthday is past and gone—­it is after midnight.”

Lord Arleigh looked up in wonder.

“After midnight?  Impossible!  Yet I declare my watch proves that it is.  It is all the fault of the starlight, Lady Peters; you must blame that.”

Lady Peters went out to them.

“I do not wonder at your lingering here,” she said.  “How calm and sweet the night is!  It reminds me of the night in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’  It was on such a night Jessica—­”