im wherever he went--that
penumbra with which the gods wrap heroes--which told her he was
different.

The gambits of the great game of love are strangely limited, and there
is little variation in the after-play. If it were not for the personal
share we take, such doings would lack interest by reason of their
monotony, by their too close resemblance to the primeval type. This is
why the game seems dull enough to onlookers; they shock us with the
callousness with which they are apt to regard our ecstasies. This is
why the straightforward game palls sometimes on the players themselves
after a while; and why they are led to take refuge from dulness in
solving problems, in the tangled irregularities of the knight's move.

Anastasia would have smiled if she had been told that she had fallen in
love; it might have been a thin smile, pale as winter's sunshine, but
she would have smiled. It was _impossible_ for her to fall in love,
because she knew that kings no longer marry beggar-maids, and she was
far too well brought up to fall in love, except as a preliminary to
marriage. No heroine of Miss Austen would permit herself even to feel
attraction to a quarter from which no offer of marriage was possible;
therefore Anastasia could not have fallen in love. She certainly was
not in the least in love, but it was true Lord Blandamer interested her.
He interested her so much, in fact, as to be in her thoughts at all
hours of the day; it was strange that no matter with what things her
mind was occupied, his image should continually present itself. She
wondered why this was; perhaps it was his power--she thought it was the
feeling of his power, a very insolence of power that dominated all these
little folk, and yet was most powerful in its restraint. She liked to
think of the compact, close-knit body, of the curling, crisp, iron-grey
hair, of the grey eyes, and of the hard, clear-cut face. Yes, she liked
the face because it _was_ hard, because it had a resolute look in it
that said he meant to go whither he wished to go.

There was no doubt she must have taken considerable interest in him, for
she found herself dreading to pronounce his name even in the most
ordinary conversation, because she felt it difficult to keep her voice
at the dead level of indifference. She dreaded when others spoke of
him, and yet there was no other subject that occupied her so much. And
sometimes when they talked of him she had a curious feeling