in her voice. It did not ring quite true; and
Vanno was disappointed. He thought that to please Angelo and him she was
affecting more interest than she was able to feel.

Angelo still had the coloured photograph on the glass plate, but now he
handed it to his wife. "What a lovely girl!" he exclaimed. "I don't
believe that in your artist days, dearest, you ever had a prettier
model."

"No, never," said Marie. She took the plate that Angelo held out, and
looked at it with a slight quivering of the eyelids as if the sun, which
was very bright, shone too strongly. Then, quickly, she sprang up,
leaving the photograph in the hammock. "An awfully pretty girl," she
went on. "Vanno must tell us all about her, at luncheon. Here comes
Americo to announce it."

She hurried to the door, smiling at the three men over her shoulder. The
sun had given her a bright colour. Even her ears were rose-pink. Vanno,
in following, retrieved the glass plate from among the cushions. He was
not sure whether or no his announcement had been a success, but the
method of it seemed to have been thrust on him by Fate.

For a few minutes after they were seated at the table Marie chatted of
other things, talking very fast about a _Blinis au caviar_ for which she
had given Filomena the recipe. "I tasted it first in Russia," she
remarked, immediately adding "when I was very young." Then abruptly she
jumped back to the subject of Vanno's great news. "Tell us about _her_,"
she commanded, giving her brother-in-law a charming smile. But as he
began, rather jerkily, to supply the information asked for, the Princess
looked down at her plate, eating slowly and daintily, as a child eats
when it wishes to make some delicious food last as long as possible. Not
once did she raise her thick, straight eyelashes, as Vanno said that the
girl was a Miss Grant, now staying with the wife of the chaplain at
Monte Carlo. Her first question seemed to have satisfied the Princess'
curiosity, for all those that followed were asked by her husband.

"Miss Grant!" he echoed, deeply interested in his brother's love affair,
though still puzzled by its suddenness, and a little uneasy. He felt
that it would not be well for both the Duke's sons to marry women
unknown socially; and almost unconsciously he was influenced by a
selfish consideration. Vanno was expected to make his, Angelo's, peace
with the father, who worshipped the younger, tolerated the elder, of his
sons. It was Vanno'