. He had been moved, he supposed now, by a protective sentiment.
Vere was delicious as she was. And Doro--he was delightful as he was.
The girl was enchanting in her ignorance. The youth--to Artois the
Marchesino seemed almost a boy, indeed, often quite a boy--was admirable
in his precocity. He embodied Naples, its gay _furberia_, and yet
that was hardly the word--perhaps rather one should say its sunny
naughtiness, its reckless devotion to life purged of thought. And
Vere--what did she embody? Not Sicily, though she was in some ways so
Sicilian. Not England; certainly not that!

Suddenly Artois was conscious that he knew Doro much better than he knew
Vere. He remembered the statement of an Austrian psychologist, that men
are far more mysterious than women, and shook his head over it now. He
felt strongly the mystery that lay hidden deep down in the innocence of
Vere, in the innocence of every girl-child of Vere's age who had brains,
temperament and perfect purity. What a marvellous combination they made!
He imagined the clear flame of them burning in the night of the world of
men. Vere must be happy.

When he said this to himself he knew that, perhaps for the first
time, he was despairing of something that he ardently desired. He was
transferring a wish, that was something like a prayer in the heart
of one who had seldom prayed. He was giving up hope for Hermione and
fastening hope on Vere. For a moment that seemed like treachery, like an
abandoning of Hermione. Since their interview on the sea Artois had
felt that, for Hermione, all possibility of real happiness was over. She
could not detach her love. It had been fastened irrevocably on Maurice.
It was now fastened irrevocably on Maurice's memory. Long ago, had she,
while he was alive, found out what he had done, her passion for him
might have died, and in the course of years she might have been able
to love again. But now it was surely too late. She had lived with her
memory too long. It was her blessing--to remember, to recall, how love
had blessed her life for a time. And if that memory were desecrated now
she would be as one wrecked in the storm of life. Yet with that memory
how she suffered!

What could he do for her? His chivalry must exercise itself. He must
remain in the lists, if only to fight for Hermione in Vere. And the
Marchesino? Artois seemed to divine that he might be an enemy in certain
circumstances.

A warmth of sentiment, not very common in Ar