ntrolled pain, and realised that in all likelihood no compensation
would ever come to him, she felt that incomparable bitterness with which
we watch the suffering of one for whom we would gladly die.

She might die for Marco ten times over, yet he would never really live.
"Two women have seen to that," she told herself bitterly. Yet in her
more rational moods she did not blame Sophy. She had known her too
intimately to blame her. No--that Marco had loved her was not Sophy's
fault. There had been in his love for her that inevitability which
characterises true passion as well as true poetry.

* * * * *

And Sophy, standing now with her hand in Amaldi's after all these years,
had at first no thoughts that could properly be called thoughts,--the
memory of the three windows in the room where she had first met him--of
how it had seemed to mean something, and yet had meant nothing, like all
else in her life....

Then with a shock that "brought her to," as it were, she recalled how
she and Amaldi had parted from each other six years ago, and the colour
welled into her face.

He knew what she was thinking of. He, too, was thinking of it.

Mrs. Van Raalt was chattering again. "Just think what an odd thing
Marco's been doing in America!... He's been all over the West studying
the system of agriculture. Isn't that the funniest way for an Italian to
spend his time in America?"

"But you've been in America before, haven't you?" said Sophy
mechanically.

She was thinking what an air of race Amaldi had, and how quiet and
strong he looked standing there against the whirling, parti-coloured
background of the ball. Somehow she did not remember in him this
powerful look of manhood. Then she realised--he _was_ more a man. Those
six intervening years had given him this new look.

"Oh, yes," he said, answering her question. "Twice. Once when I was a
boy--once about nine years ago. My mother gave me many messages for you,
Signora--'_tanti auguri_'...."

The Italian words swept Sophy back, and she paled again. This and the
mention of his mother brought so vividly the memory of Cecil's death.

"Please give her my love ... when you write...." she said, her voice a
little shaken. (Helen Van Raalt had turned away with some one.) "I shall
never forget her kindness to me...." she added. As if she felt her words
too formal, she repeated: "I shall never, never forget all her kindness
to me...."

"She will b