"Our Law makes wise the simple." Advena looked for a moment into the fire.

She was listening, with admiration, to her heart; she would not be led to consider esoteric contrasts of East and West.
"Isn't there something that appeals to you," she said, "in the thought of just leaving it, all unsaid and all undone, a dear and tender projection upon the future that faded--a lovely thing we turned away from, until one day it was no longer there ?" "Charming," he said, averting his eyes so that she should not see the hunger in them.

"Charming--literature!" She smiled and sighed, and he wrenched his mind to the consideration of the Buddhism of Browning.

She followed him obediently, but the lines they wanted did not come easily; they were compelled to search and verify.

Something lately seemed lost to them of that kind of glad activity; he was more aware of it than she, since he was less occupied in the aesthetic ecstasy of self-torture.