The place was almost empty, but for a chest or two and a table near this window with writing materials and books.  And upon a rough set of shelves close at hand many more volumes reposed.

“So it is here you live and work, you wise, lonely, little Pallas Athene,” he said.

“You must not call me that—­I am not at all like her,” Halcyone answered softly.  “She was very clever and very noble—­but a little hard, I think.  Wait until I have shown you my own goddess.  I would rather have her soul than any other of the Olympian gods.”

John Derringham took a step nearer to her.

“Do you remember the night at dinner here when you told me Pallas Athene’s words to Perseus?” he said.  “I have thought of them often, and they have helped me sometimes, I think.”

“I am so glad,” said Halcyone simply, while she moved towards her treasure chest.

He watched her with satisfied eyes—­every action of hers was full of grace, and the interest he felt in her personally obscured any for the moment in what she was going to show him, but at last he became aware that she had unlocked a cupboard drawer, and was taking from it a bundle of blue silk.

His curiosity was aroused, and he went over as near as he could.

“Come!” whispered Halcyone, and walked to the high window-sill of the middle section, and then put down her burden upon the old faded velvet seat.

“See, I will take off her veil gradually,” she said, “and you must tell me of what she makes you think.”

John Derringham was growing interested by now, but had no idea in the world of the marvel he was going to see.  He started more perceptibly than even Mr. Carlyon had done seven years before, when he had realized the superlative beauty of the Greek head.

Halcyone uncovered it reverently, and then took a step back, and waited silently for him to speak.

He looked long into the marvelous face, and then he said as though he were dreaming: 

“Aphrodite herself!”

“Ah!  I felt you would know and recognize her at once—­Yes, that is her name.  Oh, I am glad!” and Halcyone clapped her hands.  “She is my mother, and so, you see, I am never alone here, for she speaks always to me of love.”

John Derringham looked at her sharply as she said this, and in her eyes he saw two wells of purity, each with an evening star melted into its depths.

And he suddenly was conscious of something which his whole life had missed—­for he knew he did not know what real love meant, not even that which his mother might have given him, if she had lived.

He did not speak for a moment; he gazed into Halcyone’s face.  It seemed as if a curtain had lifted for one instant and given him a momentary glimpse into some heaven, and then dropped again, leaving a haunting memory of sweetness, the more beautiful because indistinct.

“Love—­” he said, still dreamily.  “Surely there is yet another and a deeper kind of love.”