"Not by any means, my boy," cried Argyle.

"And then a man naturally loves his own wife, too, even if it is not bearable to love her."

"Or one leaves her, like Aaron," said Lilly.

"And seeks another woman, so," said the Marchese.

"Does he seek another woman?" said Lilly. "Do you, Aaron?"

"I don't WANT to," said Aaron. "But--I can't stand by myself in the middle of the world and in the middle of people, and know I am quite by myself, and nowhere to go, and nothing to hold on to. I can for a day or two--But then, it becomes unbearable as well. You get frightened. You feel you might go funny--as you would if you stood on this balcony wall with all the space beneath you."

"Can't one be alone--quite alone?" said Lilly.

"But no--it is absurd. Like Saint Simeon Stylites on a pillar. But it is absurd!" cried the Italian.

"I don't mean like Simeon Stylites. I mean can't one live with one's wife, and be fond of her: and with one's friends, and enjoy their company: and with the world and everything, pleasantly: and yet KNOW that one is alone? Essentially, at the very core of me, alone. Eternally alone. And choosing to be alone. Not sentimental or LONELY. Alone, choosing to be alone, because by one's own nature one is alone. The being with another person is secondary," said Lilly.

"One is alone," said Argyle, "in all but love. In all but love, my dear fellow. And then I agree with you."

"No," said Lilly, "in love most intensely of all, alone."

"Completely incomprehensible," said Argyle. "Amounts to nothing."

"One man is but a part. How can he be so alone?" said the Marchese.

"In so far as he is a single individual soul, he IS alone--ipso facto.

In so far as I am I, and only I am I, and I am only I, in so far, I am inevitably and eternally alone, and it is my last blessedness to know it, and to accept it, and to live with this as the core of my self-knowledge."

"My dear boy, you are becoming metaphysical, and that is as bad as softening of the brain," said Argyle.

"All right," said Lilly.

"And," said the Marchese, "it may be so by REASON. But in the heart--?

Can the heart ever beat quite alone? Plop! Plop!--Can the heart beat quite alone, alone in all the atmosphere, all the space of the universe?

Plop! Plop! Plop!--Quite alone in all the space?" A slow smile came over the Italian's face. "It is impossible. It may eat against the heart of other men, in anger, all in pressure against the others. It may beat hard, like iron, saying it is independent. But this is only beating against the heart of mankind, not alone.--But either with or against the heart of mankind, or the heart of someone, mother, wife, friend, children--so must the heart of every man beat. It is so."

"It beats alone in its own silence," said Lilly.

The Italian shook his head.

"We'd better be going inside, anyhow," said Argyle. "Some of you will be taking cold."

"Aaron," said Lilly. "Is it true for you?"

"Nearly," said Aaron, looking into the quiet, half-amused, yet frightening eyes of the other man. "Or it has been."

"A miss is as good as a mile," laughed Lilly, rising and picking up his chair to take it indoors. And the laughter of his voice was so like a simple, deliberate amiability, that Aaron's heart really stood still for a second. He knew that Lilly was alone--as far as he, Aaron, was concerned. Lilly was alone--and out of his isolation came his words, indifferent as to whether they came or not. And he left his friends utterly to their own choice. Utterly to their own choice. Aaron felt that Lilly was _there_, existing in life, yet neither asking for connection nor preventing any connection. He was present, he was the real centre of the group. And yet he asked nothing of them, and he imposed nothing. He left each to himself, and he himself remained just himself: neither more nor less. And there was a finality about it, which was at once maddening and fascinating. Aaron felt angry, as if he were half insulted by the other man's placing the gift of friendship or connection so quietly back in the giver's hands. Lilly would receive no gift of friendship in equality. Neither would he violently refuse it. He let it lie unmarked. And yet at the same time Aaron knew that he could depend on the other man for help, nay, almost for life itself--so long as it entailed no breaking of the intrinsic isolation of Lilly's soul. But this condition was also hateful. And there was also a great fascination in it.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE MARCHESA

So Aaron dined with the Marchesa and Manfredi. He was quite startled when his hostess came in: she seemed like somebody else. She seemed like a demon, her hair on her brows, her terrible modern elegance. She wore a wonderful gown of thin blue velvet, of a lovely colour, with some kind of gauzy gold-threaded filament down the sides. It was terribly modern, short, and showed her legs and her shoulders and breast and all her beautiful white arms. Round her throat was a collar of dark-blue sapphires. Her hair was done low, almost to the brows, and heavy, like an Aubrey Beardsley drawing. She was most carefully made up--yet with that touch of exaggeration, lips slightly too red, which was quite intentional, and which frightened Aaron. He thought her wonderful, and sinister. She affected him with a touch of horror. She sat down opposite him, and her beautifully shapen legs, in frail, goldish stockings, seemed to glisten metallic naked, thrust from out of the wonderful, wonderful skin, like periwinkle-blue velvet. She had tapestry shoes, blue and gold: and almost one could see her toes: metallic naked. The gold-threaded gauze slipped at her side. Aaron could not help watching the naked-seeming arch of her foot. It was as if she were dusted with dark gold-dust upon her marvellous nudity.

She must have seen his face, seen that he was _ebloui_.

"You brought the flute?" she said, in that toneless, melancholy, unstriving voice of hers. Her voice alone was the same: direct and bare and quiet.

"Yes."

"Perhaps I shall sing later on, if you'll accompany me. Will you?"

"I thought you hated accompaniments."

"Oh, no--not just unison. I don't mean accompaniment. I mean unison. I don't know how it will be. But will you try?"

"Yes, I'll try."

"Manfredi is just bringing the cocktails. Do you think you'd prefer orange in yours?"

"Ill have mine as you have yours."

"I don't take orange in mine. Won't you smoke?"

The strange, naked, remote-seeming voice! And then the beautiful firm limbs thrust out in that dress, and nakedly dusky as with gold-dust. Her beautiful woman's legs, slightly glistening, duskily. His one abiding instinct was to touch them, to kiss them. He had never known a woman to exercise such power over him. It was a bare, occult force, something he could not cope with.

Manfredi came in with the little tray. He was still in uniform.

"Hello!" cried the little Italian. "Glad to see you--well, everything all right? Glad to hear it. How is the cocktail, Nan?"

"Yes," she said. "All right."

"One drop too much peach, eh?"

"No, all right."

"Ah," and the little officer seated himself, stretching his gaitered legs as if gaily. He had a curious smiling look on his face, that Aaron thought also diabolical--and almost handsome. Suddenly the odd, laughing, satanic beauty of the little man was visible.

"Well, and what have you been doing with yourself?" said he. "What did you do yesterday?"

"Yesterday?" said Aaron. "I went to the Uffizi."

"To the Uffizi? Well! And what did you think of it?"

"Very fine."