eat
tenderness."

"And is _this_ the word of the Venetian riddle?" asked Mills, fixing her
with his keen eyes.

"If it pleases you to think so, Senor," she said indifferently. The
movement of her eyes, their veiled gleam became mischievous when she
asked, "And Don Juan Blunt, have you seen him over there?"

"I fancy he avoided me. Moreover, he is always with his regiment at the
outposts. He is a most valorous captain. I heard some people describe
him as foolhardy."

"Oh, he needn't seek death," she said in an indefinable tone. "I mean as
a refuge. There will be nothing in his life great enough for that."

"You are angry. You miss him, I believe, Dona Rita."

"Angry? No! Weary. But of course it's very inconvenient. I can't very
well ride out alone. A solitary amazon swallowing the dust and the salt
spray of the Corniche promenade would attract too much attention. And
then I don't mind you two knowing that I am afraid of going out alone."

"Afraid?" we both exclaimed together.

"You men are extraordinary. Why do you want me to be courageous? Why
shouldn't I be afraid? Is it because there is no one in the world to
care what would happen to me?"

There was a deep-down vibration in her tone for the first time. We had
not a word to say. And she added after a long silence:

"There is a very good reason. There is a danger."

With wonderful insight Mills affirmed at once:

"Something ugly."

She nodded slightly several times. Then Mills said with conviction:

"Ah! Then it can't be anything in yourself. And if so . . . "

I was moved to extravagant advice.

"You should come out with me to sea then. There may be some danger there
but there's nothing ugly to fear."

She gave me a startled glance quite unusual with her, more than wonderful
to me; and suddenly as though she had seen me for the first time she
exclaimed in a tone of compunction:

"Oh! And there is this one, too! Why! Oh, why should he run his head
into danger for those things that will all crumble into dust before
long?"

I said: "_You_ won't crumble into dust." And Mills chimed in:

"That young enthusiast will always have his sea."

We were all standing up now. She kept her eyes on me, and repeated with
a sort of whimsical enviousness:

"The sea! The violet sea--and he is longing to rejoin it! . . . At
night! Under the stars! . . . A lovers' meeting," she went on, thrilling
me from head to foot with those two w