it is to feel
quite sure that _our_ parting is only for a few days, instead of
forever, like that of our poor lovers of 'Remember eternal.' It was dear
of you to have those words engraved inside the ring you gave me. I love
the quaint English. And it is like a secret which belongs only to us out
of all the world."

"Well!" exclaimed the Princess, after she had tried in vain to attract
Mary's notice, "as you're so delightfully occupied, I may as well remove
myself and leave you in peace. In less than an hour the fair Idina will
be upon us; and I'm going upstairs now to make myself as pretty as
Angelo thinks me, to do honour to his cousin. By the way, it's our first
luncheon party, not counting you and Vanno and the cure."

She slid out of the red hammock, showing slim ankles that gleamed like
marble through a thin film of bronze-brown silk. As she went into the
house humming some Italian air she had picked up, Mary thought how young
and innocently gay she seemed. It was almost impossible to believe her
the same woman who had sobbed behind a disguising veil in Rose Winter's
drawing-room, begging Mary to swear by Vanno's love never to betray her
secret. And it seemed equally incredible that this mirthful and charming
girl could have such a secret to hide. Mary tried to forget. It was a
kind of treachery to remember those tears, and the reason for them
which Angelo must not know. To change her thoughts, Mary sprang up
swiftly, and, calling Angelo's Persian dog Miro--a lovely white creature
like a floating plume--she went out through the woods with her letter
for Vanno, meaning to take a short cut among the olives, to a branch
post-office not far off.

As she returned a few minutes later, two women walking at a distance
under the great silvery arbour watched her run by with the Persian dog.

"That's the girl I told you about, who is going to marry my cousin
Giovanni, Prince Della Robbia's younger brother," said Idina Bland to
her companion; "the Miss Grant who has been so much talked about here."
Idina had a contralto voice, with tones in it almost as deep as those of
a very young man. It was musical, and gave an effect of careful
training, as if she had studied voice-production and had become
self-conscious through over-practising.

"It's strange, the resemblance in those names," the other woman
murmured, almost as if speaking to herself. She was small and extremely
thin, with insignificant features and sallow, slight