“Oh, ho!” Hancock broke in, his black eyes gleaming wickedly. “So, Leo, you identify woman with beauty?”

The young poet’s lips moved, but he could only nod.

“Very well, then, let us take the testimony of painting, during the last thousand years, as a reflex of economic conditions and political institutions, and by it see how man has molded and daubed woman into the image of his desire, and how she has permitted him — ”

“You must stop baiting Leo,” Paula interfered, “and be truthful, all of you, and say what you do know or do believe.”

“Woman is a very sacred subject,” Dar Hyal enunciated solemnly.

“There is the Madonna,”