Ah, me! in those days, ladies had knights and men were heroes." As he looked at her, his whole soul shone in his eyes.
"And I, too," he cried.

"I love those days ten thousand times better than these." "Do you ?" asked her ladyship with admiring eyes, "how strange! It is not long since I was speaking to one whom I may call a young man of the period, and his reply was, 'Horrid bore, those kind of things were, Lady Lisle,' and I thought most young men were of his opinion." "I am not," said Basil, "I love those knights and heroes of old! great men and grand men who were content to ride forth, and to battle unto death for a woman's smile." She raised her radiant eyes to his.
"Would you do that much for a woman's smile, Mr.Carruthers ?" He paused a moment before speaking, then said: "For one such woman as those men loved, I would." She sighed deeply; the jewels on her white breast gleamed and glistened.
"Ah, you think, then, that the glorious race of women heroes loved and died for, have disappeared ?" "I thought so, until I saw you," he replied.
"You are wrong," she said.

"You will live to tell me that you are wrong.
There may be no Helen such as she who lived at Troy, and no Cleopatra such as Egypt's dusky queen, but there are grand women living yet, worthy of heroes' love." "I am sure of it," he said, "now that I have seen you." But she made no reply; she did not even appear to have heard his words.
"I can understand you," she said, gently.

"Women have sometimes the rare gift of entering into the minds of reserved men.

I understand you as though I had known you for years." His face cleared, his heart beat, his eyes brightened for her as they had never done for any other woman.
"I can remember," she said, "when I had many similar opinions.