“They are almost miraculously beautiful.  And one scarcely knows why.  But I know that every time I see them the mystery of their beauty seems more ineffable to me, and the meaning of it seems more profound.  How did men get so much meaning into marble?”

“By caring so much for what is beautiful in womanhood, I suppose.”

He sat down close beside her.

“I sometimes wonder whether women have any idea what some men, many men, I believe, seek in women.”

“What do they seek?”

“What do those maidens that hold up the Porch suggest to you?”

“All that’s calm without a touch of coldness, and strong without a touch of hardness, and noble without a touch of pride, and obedient without a touch of servility.”

“Brave sweetness, too, and protectiveness.  They are wonderful, and so are some women.  When I saw you in the omnibus at Milan I thought of these maidens immediately.”

“How strange!”

“Why strange?”

“Isn’t it?” she said, gazing at the six maidens in their flowering draperies of marble, who, upon their uncovered heads, bore tranquillity up the marble architrave.  “How wonderfully simple and unpretending they are!”

“Are not you?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t believe I think about it.”

“I do.  Rosamund, sometimes I feel that I am an unique man—­just think of a fellow in a firm on the Stock Exchange being unique!—­because I have had an ideal, and I have attainted to it.  When I was here alone, I conceived for the first time an ideal of woman.  I said to myself, ’In the days of ancient Greece there must have been such women in the flesh as these maidens in marble.  If I could have lived and loved then!’ And I came away from Greece carrying a sort of romantic dream with me.  And now I sit here with you; I can’t think why I, a quite ordinary man, should be picked out for perfect happiness.”

“Is it really perfect?” she asked, turning to him.

“I think so.  In such a place with you!”

As the evening drew on, a little wind came and went over the rocky height, but it had no breath of cold in it.  Two Greek soldiers passed by slowly behind them—­short young men with skins almost as dark as the skins of Arabs of the South, black eyes and faces full of active mentality.  They were talking eagerly, but stopped for a moment to look at the English, and beyond them at the six maidens on their platform of marble.  Then they went on talking again, but presently hesitated, came back, and stood not far off, gazing at the Porch with a mixture of reverence and quiet wistfulness.  Dion drew Rosamund’s attention to them.

“They feel the beauty,” he said.

“Yes, I like that.”

She looked at the two young men with a smile.  One of them noticed it, and smiled back at her almost boyishly, and with a sort of confidential simplicity.

The light began to fail.  The six maidens were less clearly seen, but the deep meaning of them did not lessen.  In the gathering darkness they and their sweet effort became more touching, more lovable.  Their persistence was exquisite now that they confronted with serenity the night.