summer day, your eyes looked so blue in the creamy satin of your face, I suddenly thought I smelled the violets with which God mixed their colours."
"You think of such silly things," she said with mock severity.
"There's nothing silly about it. Beauty is an attribute of the divine. I worship it for its own sweet sake wherever I find it, in pearl or opal, dewdrop or flower, the stars, or a woman's face or form or eyes."
She lowered her head.
"Do you know the old legend of the opal?" he asked.
He took some stones from his pocket and held in the light an opal of rare luster.
"Isn't it beautiful?" she cried.
"And its story is as beautiful as its face. Listen: A sunbeam lingered under a leaf in the forest at sunset, loath to leave so fair a spot, until the moon suddenly rose. Enraptured with the shimmering beauty of a moonbeam, he stood entranced and trembling and could not go. In ecstasy they met, embraced and kissed. The sun sank and left him in her arms. The opal is the child of their love. In its fair face is forever mingled the silver of the rising moon and the golden glory of the sunset."
"I believe you made that up," she laughed.
"I wish I were poet enough."
"I had no idea you dreamed of such romantic nonsense."
