Theophil felt, as he looked at Isabel, that this wonderful nearness could never pass away.

Her dress, her coiled _cendre_ hair, her soft smile, her very attitudes, seemed to wear a curious expression of everlastingness.

Yes, she would sit just like that, and he and Jenny would sit near her for ever and ever.

No mere abstractions like Time and Space could fill with emptiness the place where she now sat and smiled.

In some mystical way eternity had breathed upon this hour and given it immortality.