e forgotten. His jealousy of Emilio vanished
in a cloud of happy contempt for the disabilities of age, and he began
to talk to Vere with a vivacity that was truly Neapolitan. When the
Marchesino was joyous he had charm, the charm that emanates from the
bounding life that flows in the veins of youth. Even the Puritan feels,
and fears, the grace that is Pagan. The Marchesino had a Pagan grace.
And now it returned to him and fell about him like a garment, clothing
body and soul. And Vere seemed to respond to it. She began to chatter,
too. She talked lightly, flicking him with little whips of sarcasm that
did not hurt, but only urged him on. The humor of a festa might begin to
flow from these two.

And again, instead of infecting Artois, it seemed to set him apart, to
rebuke silently his gifts, his fame--to tell him that they were useless,
that they could do nothing for him.

The Marchesino was not troubled with an intellect. Yet with what ease he
found words to play with the words of Vere! His Latin vivacity seemed a
perfect substitute for thought, for imagination, for every subtlety. He
bubbled like champagne. And when champagne winks and foams at the edge
of the shining glass, do the young think of, or care for, the sober
gravity, the lingering bouquet of claret, even if it be Chateau Margaux?

As Artois half listened to the young people, while he talked quietly
with Hermione, playing the host with discretion, he felt the peculiar
cruelty which ordains that the weapons of youth, even if taken up and
used by age with vigor and competence, shall be only reeds in those
hands whose lines tell of the life behind.

Yet how Vere and he had laughed together on the day of his return
from Paris! One gust of such mutual laughter is worth how many days of
earnest talk!

Vere was gleaming with fun to-night.

The waiters, as they went softly about the table, looked at her with
kind eyes. Secretly they were enjoying her gayety because it was so
pretty. Her merriment was as airy as the flight of a bird.

The Marchesino was entranced. Did she care for that?

Artois wondered secretly, and was not sure. He had a theory that all
women like to feel their power over men. Few men have not this theory.
But there was in Vere something immensely independent, that seemed
without sex, and that hinted at a reserve not vestal, but very pure--too
pure, perhaps, to desire an empire which is founded certainly upon
desire.

And the Marchesino