is not so easy a matter. The majority of women are adored only because they cannot make themselves loved.
Not that we would decry illusions, far from it; we have often thought that there is nothing beautiful and exalted in life but that which has no existence there; that is to say, life in its naked reality, stripped of the bright hues that are thrown on it through the prism of the imagination, is not worth the living and is like the butterfly whose wings, rudely crumpled by some rough hand, have lost their brilliant golden dust.
To destroy illusion is to limit the world to our own narrow horizon, it "is to restrict the circle of our sensations within the grasp of our outstretched hand; it is as if we should follow the example of the Spartan ephor and cut two strings from the lyre, or that of the tyrant of Syracuse and throw our most costly ring into the sea, or disfigure ourselves like Origen.
So, then, when Arthur recognized the great blue eyes of his fair unknown beneath a black hat and through a veil of the same color he had dashed to the door of the café, but just as he was on the point of passing out he suddenly remembered that he had not paid, and could not pay, for what he had consumed, and he reflected that were he to leave the place, particularly in that hurried manner, he would inevitably be taken for a Jeremy Diddler who had endeavored to make his breakfast at the expense of the restaurateur.
He returned to his place, called for a sixth glass of sweetened water and made believe to read a newspaper.
At last a man came into the café with a laughing
