ch of these natures had given
something to Vanno, and the differences were so strongly marked that his
elder brother had said, "to know Vanno was like knowing two men of
entirely opposite characters, each struggling for mastery over the
other." But even in his asceticism he was ardent. Whatever he did, he
did with passion and fervour, which he could laugh at as if from a
distance sometimes, but could not change. And his ideas of the right
life for women were not unlike the ideas of eastern men. Women should be
guarded, kept apart from all that was evil or even unpleasant. So the
lovely American mother had been guarded, somewhat against her will, by
the Duke, and she had died while she was still young. She had never
talked to Vanno of women's life and girls' life in her own country, for
she had gone to the unseen land while he was still a boy. If she had
stayed, perhaps he would not have had to go to the desert for comfort,
when he at twenty loved a woman of twenty-eight, who flirted with him
until he was half mad, and then married an American millionaire.

The table nearest Mary was not engaged, for it was too early in the
evening for a crowd in the Paris restaurant. Vanno signified to a waiter
his desire for this table, and was taken to it. He sat down facing Mary,
and pretended to study the menu. He hardly knew what he ordered. A
waiter was bringing the girl a small bottle of champagne, in an
ice-pail. The man cut the wires, and extracted the cork neatly, but with
a slight popping sound. Mary started a little, and glancing up at the
waiter smiled at him gayly, with a dimple in each cheek. Her big hat was
placed jauntily on one side, and the deep blue velvet brim, with the
gauzy gold of the soft crown, was extremely striking on the silver-gold
waves of her hair. In her wonderful dress, which showed a good deal of
white neck, she looked so fashionably sophisticated that Vanno feared
the start she gave at the popping of the cork might be affected. He
gazed across at her with mingled disapproval and admiration which gave
singular intensity to his deep-set, romantic eyes as Mary met them.

She was in a mood to be delighted with everything that happened, and it
seemed a charming happening that the handsome young man from Marseilles
should have chanced to come to this hotel. It did not occur to her that
his coming might not be an accident, and she was pleased to see him
again.

Her bringing up, in all that concerned her tr