"
"I think, sir, they are called plantains."
"You only think. Stop and I'll ask those people."
"Sont des plantains, Monsieur."
"Well, I told you so," Doris said, laughing.
Beyond this spectral avenue, on either side of us there were fields,
and Doris murmured:
"See how flat the country is, to the very feet of the hills, and the
folk working in the fields are pleasant to watch."
I declared that I could not watch them, nor could you, reader, if you
had been sitting by Doris. I had risen and come away from long months
of toil; and I remember how I told Doris as we drove across those
fields towards the hills, that it was not her beauty alone that
interested me; her beauty would not be itself were it not illumed by
her wit and her love of art. What would she be, for instance, if she
were not a musician? Or would her face be the same face if it were
robbed of its mirth? But mirth is enchanting only when the source of
it is the intelligence. Vacuous laughter is the most tiresome of
things; a face of stone is more inveigling. But Doris prided herself
on her beauty more than on her wit, and she was disinclined to admit
the contention that beauty is dependent upon the intelligence. Our
talk rambled on, now in one direction, now in another.
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