ing in her mind nor answering reasons with reasons. With the
realisation of fact, came quickly the infinite regret and longing she
knew so well, yet which always consoled her a little. She had a right to
love as she did, since she was to suffer by it all her life. If she had
thrown over Guido d'Este to marry Lamberti, there would have been
something guilty in loving him. But there was not. She was perfectly
disinterested, absolutely without one thought for her own happiness, and
if she had done wrong she had done it unconsciously and was going to pay
the penalty with the fullest consciousness of its keenness.

The tourists trooped back, grinding the path with their heavy shoes,
hot, dusty, tired, and persevering, as all good tourists are. They
stared at her when they thought she was not watching them, for they were
simple and discreet souls, bent on improving themselves, and though they
despised her a little for not toiling like themselves, they saw that she
was beautiful and cool and quiet, sitting there in the shade, in her
light summer frock, and her white gloves, and her Paris hat, and the men
admired her as a superior being, who might be an angel or a demon, while
all the women envied her to the verge of hatred; and because she was
accompanied by such an evidently respectable person as Peterson was,
they could not even say that she was probably an actress. This
distressed them very much.

Kant says somewhere that when a man turns from argument and appeals to
mankind's common sense, it is a sure sign that his reasoning is
worthless. Similarly, when women can find nothing reasonable to say
against a fellow-woman who is pretty and well dressed, they generally
say that she looks like an actress; and this means according to the
customs of a hundred years ago, which women seem to remember though most
men have forgotten them, that she is an excommunicated person not fit to
be buried like a Christian. Really, they could hardly say more in a
single word.

When the tourists were at a safe distance Cecilia rose, bidding Petersen
sit still, and she went slowly on towards the House of the Vestals, and
up the little inclined wooden bridge which at that time led up to it,
till she stood within the court, her hand resting almost on the very
spot where it had been when Lamberti had come upon her in the spring
morning.

Her memories rose and her thoughts flashed back with them through ages,
giving the ruined house its early beau