t, and partly she seemed to believe that I'd have spoken to
her of love if she hadn't been a kind of dependent on my father. I tried
to make her understand without putting it into brutal words, that I did
love her of course, but only as a cousin. It's the devil having to tell
a woman you don't want her! I'm not sure she did entirely understand,
for she wrote me a letter afterward--it followed me to Dresden, and came
the day after Marie had promised to be my wife. I didn't answer. I
thought when Idina heard of my marriage she'd see why I hadn't replied,
and why it was kinder not to write. I knew she would hear through
father, for she corresponds with him. He is very punctilious about
answering letters; and suspecting nothing he would tell the news. When I
found her with Marie yesterday--but I see now I was a fool. These
melodramatic things don't happen. And after all, Idina's a cold woman."

"I wonder?"

"Well, anyhow, she was very civil to me and pleasant to Marie, whom I
questioned afterward about what Idina had said before I came in. It
seems there was nothing--but I explained to my wife that there'd been a
boy and girl friendship between Idina and me, a sort of cousinly half
flirtation, nothing more. And really there _was_ nothing more."

"Certainly not," Vanno agreed, emphatically. "But it's just as well to
tell Marie, so that in case Idina should do something--one of those
things women call 'catty'--she'd be prepared."

"Yes, it is better to have no concealments," said Angelo. "Luckily I
have no other complications in my past. Nothing to dread. And Marie is
an angel. She would forgive me anything, I believe, if there were
anything I had to ask her to forgive."

"As you would her," Vanno added, impulsively.

"With her, there could be nothing to forgive," Angelo replied,
stiffening. "She is an angel. And now, enough of my affairs. Let us talk
about yours."

XXVIII

When her husband and brother-in-law had left her, Princess Della Robbia
began to go upstairs very slowly. She mounted with her hand on the
balusters, as if she were weak or tired. At last, when she had reached
the etage of the Winters' flat, she paused, and rested for several
minutes before the door which displayed the chaplain's card. She was
breathing rather fast, which was but natural perhaps, as she had
ascended three flights of stairs, was wearing an immensely long and wide
ermine stole, and carrying a huge muff to match. Before she t