Such a face as Silencieux's demanded a more celestial porcelain.
Dinner at last finished, he made an excuse to Beatrice for leaving her alone once more at the end as he had during all the rest of the day, and hastened to keep his tryst with Silencieux.

During dinner the conscious side of his mind had been luxuriating in the romantic sound of "until the rising of the moon,"-- for he was as yet a long way from being quite simple even with Silencieux,--and the idea of his going out with serious eagerness to meet one who, if she was as he knew a living being, was an image too, delighted his sense of fantastic make-believe.
There is in all love that element of make-believe.

Every woman who is loved is partly the creation of her lover's fancy.

He consciously siderealises her, and with open eyes magnifies her importance to his life.

Antony but made believe and magnified uncommonly--and his dream of vivifying white plaster was perhaps less desperate than the dreams of some, that would breathe the breath of life into the colder clay of some beloved woman, who seems spontaneously to live but is dead all the while.
Silencieux appeared to be dead, but beneath that eternal smile, as Beatrice had divined, as Antony was learning, she was only too terribly alive.