And now there is no reprieve, for I have committed myself, am sentenced, and condemned to be made ridiculous in your eyes.

Can there be anything more contemptible, more laughable, more utterly and hopelessly absurd, than an old and ugly man declaring his unrequited passion for a woman who might be his granddaughter?
Is he not like a hoary old owl, who leaves his mousing to perch upon one leg and hoot love ditties at the evening star, or screech out amorous sonnets to the maiden moon ?" "Very like," said Unorna with a laugh.
"And yet--my evening star--dear star of my fast-sinking evening--golden Unorna--shall I be cut off from love because my years are many?
Or rather, shall I not love you the more, because the years that are left are few and scantily blessed?
May not your dawn blend with my sunset and make together one short day ?" "That is very pretty," said Unorna, thoughtfully.

He had the power of making his speech sound like a deep, soft music.
"For what is love ?" he asked.

"Is it a garment, a jewel, a fanciful ornament which only boys and girls may wear upon a summer's holiday?
May we take it or leave it, as we please?
Wear it, if it shows well upon our beauty, or cast it off for others to put on when we limp aside out of the race of fashion to halt and breathe before we die?
Is love beauty?
Is love youth?
Is love yellow hair or black?
Is love the rose upon the lip or the peach blossom in the cheek, that only the young may call it theirs?
Is it an outward grace, which can live but so long as the other outward graces are its companions, to perish when the first gray hair streaks the dark locks?
Is it a glass, shivered by the first shock of care as a mirror by a sword-stroke?
Is it a painted mask, washed colourless by the first rain of autumn tears?
Is it a flower, so tender that it must perish miserably in the frosty rime of earliest winter?
Is love the accident of youth, the complement of a fresh complexion, the corollary of a light step, the physical concomitant of swelling pulses and unstrained sinews ?" Keyork Arabian laughed softly.

Unorna was grave and looked up into his face, resting her chin upon her hand.
"If that is love, if that is the idol of your shrine, the vision of your dreams, the familiar genius of your earthly paradise, why then, indeed, he who worships by your side, and who would share the habitation of your happiness, must wear Absalom's anointed curls and walk with Agag's delicate step.