man creature with a heart and brain capable
of mystery; a soul with room in it for secret things; a temple whose
outside he had seen, but whose god, perhaps, he had never seen.

And Vere was involved in her mother's strangeness, and had her own
strangeness too. Of that he had been conscious before to-night. For Vere
was being formed. The plastic fingers were at work about her, moulding
her into what she must be as a woman.

But Hermione! She had been a woman so long.

Perhaps, too, she was standing on the brink of a precipice. That
suspicion, that fear, not to be banished by action, added to the
curiosity, as about an unknown land, that she aroused.

And the new and vital sense of Hermione's strangeness which was alive
in Artois was met by a feeling in her that was akin to it, only of the
feminine sex.

Their eyes encountered like eyes that say, "What are you?"

After swift greeting they went down-stairs to dine in the public room.
As there were but few people in the house, the large dining-room was not
in use, and their table was laid in the small restaurant that looks out
on the Marina, and was placed close to the window.

"At last we are repeating our _partie carree_ of the Guiseppone," said
Artois, as they sat down.

He felt that as host he must release himself from subtleties and
under-feelings, must stamp down his consciousness of secret inquiries
and of desires or hatreds half-concealed. He spoke cheerfully, even
conventionally.

"Yes, but without the storm," said Hermione, in the same tone. "There is
no feeling of electricity in the air to-night."

Even while she spoke she felt as if she were telling a lie which was
obvious to them all. And she could not help glancing hastily round. She
met the large round eyes of the Marchesino, eyes without subtlety though
often expressive.

"No, Signora," he said, smiling at her, rather obviously to captivate
her by the sudden vision of his superb teeth--"La Bruna is safe
to-night."

"La Bruna?"

"The Madonna del Carmine."

They talked of the coming festa.

Vere was rather quiet, much less vehement in appearance and lively in
manner than she had been at the Marchesino's dinner. Artois thought
she looked definitely older than she had then, though even then she had
played quite well the part of a little woman of the world. There was
something subdued in her eyes to-night which touched him, because it
made him imagine Vere sad. He wondered if she were still t