threw a warm-hearted glance at her husband, valuing his kindly
qualities the more because they two had just come from a tea-party, at a
villa where the alternative to bridge had been telling the whole truth
about people behind their backs, and digging up Pasts by the roots, as
children unearth plants to see if they have grown. Luckily St. George
had remained in blissful ignorance of the latter popular game. People
showed only their best side to him, and made good resolutions about the
other, while his influence was upon them.

"As for us," Rose went on, "we're quite a staid married couple, and I
feel I'm intended by nature for the ideal chaperon--for a blonde like
Miss Grant. We shall look charming together, and though we mayn't make
her comfortable, I guarantee to amuse her; for as a household we are
unique. We live in an ugly, square apartment house--a kind of
quadrupedifice--and our cook is in love, consequently her omelettes are
like antimacassars; but I have a chafing-dish, and the most wonderful
maid, and our tea-parties are famous--honey-combed with countesses and
curates, to say nothing of curiosities. And my husband, though a
clergyman, lets me go to all the lovely concerts where the dear
conductor grabs up music by the handful and throws it in the faces of
his orchestra. The only thing beginning with a C, which Miss Grant will
have to miss with us, is--the Casino."

"I shan't miss that!" Mary exclaimed; then flushed brightly.

"Does that mean you will come?"

"Yes. It does mean that she will come," Vanno spoke for her.

"I think," remarked Rose, "that your future husband is a masterful
person who intends you to 'toe the line.' But if it's his heart line, it
will be all right."

"Perhaps," said Vanno, "for we are both very old-fashioned." He looked
at Mary, and she at him. It was adorable to have little secrets that
nobody else could understand.

Rose, dearly as she loved her husband, almost envied them for an
instant: lovers only just engaged, with no cooks and housemaids and
accounts to think of: nothing but each other, and poetry and romance.
Yet, she was not quite sure, on second thoughts, that she did envy them.
Vaguely she seemed to see something fatal in the two handsome, happy
faces; something that set them apart from the comfortable, commonplace
experiences of the rest of the world.

"I think--after all I'd rather be myself than that girl," she decided.

XXVI

Vanno's way of atoneme