nce in order to avoid any
awkwardness when they next met, for he could not possibly have spoken
first to her across the young girl.

"Is it your first visit to Amalfi?" she inquired, with as much
originality as is common in such cases.

Brook leaned forward too, and looked over at the elder woman.

"Yes," he answered, "I was with a party, and they dropped me here last
night. I was to meet my people here, but they haven't turned up yet, so
I'm seeing the sights. I went up to Ravello this morning--you know, that
place on the hill. There's an awfully good view from there, isn't
there?"

Clare thought his fluency developed very quickly when he spoke to her
mother. As he leaned forward she could not help seeing his face, and she
looked at him closely, for the first time, and with some curiosity. He
was handsome, and had a wonderfully frank and good-humoured expression.
He was not in the least a "beauty" man--she thought he might be a
soldier or a sailor, and a very good specimen of either. Furthermore, he
was undoubtedly a gentleman, so far as a man is to be judged by his
outward manner and appearance. In her heart she had already set him down
as little short of a villain. The discrepancy between his looks and what
she thought of him disturbed her. It was unpleasant to feel that a man
who had acted as he had acted last night could look as fresh, and
innocent, and unconcerned as he looked to-day. It was disagreeable to
have him at her elbow. Either he had never cared a straw for poor Lady
Fan, and in that case he had almost broken her heart out of sheer
mischief and love of selfish amusement, or else, if he had cared for her
at all, he was a pitiably fickle and faithless creature--something much
more despicable in the eyes of most women than the most heartless cynic.
One or the other he must be, thought Clare. In either case he was bad,
because Lady Fan was married, and it was wicked to make love to married
women. There was a directness about Clare's view which would either have
made the man laugh or would have hurt him rather badly. She wondered
what sort of expression would come over his handsome face if she were
suddenly to tell him what she knew. The idea took her by surprise, and
she smiled to herself as she thought of it.

Yet she could not help glancing at him again and again, as he talked
across her with her mother, making very commonplace remarks about the
beauty of the place. Very much in spite of herself, she