come before, or could have come otherwise. Also, his combativeness
was roused. His nerves seemed to quiver, to bristle with an angry
determination to justify himself in his own eyes, and to have his
revenge upon the brutal power of the bank.

"I'll get it all back from them to-morrow," he thought, "and more
besides. I won't be beaten. And when I've done something worth doing,
I'll stop. That's the way to gamble."

XX

Mary was not comfortable at the Dauntreys', and the house depressed her;
but it was a refuge from the Hotel de Paris, where Prince Giovanni Della
Robbia was; and Lady Dauntrey was so kind, so affectionate, that Mary
felt it her duty to be grateful. Almost strangers as they were, her
hostess poured into her ears a great many intimate confidences, and
asked her guest's advice as well as sympathy. Mary was touched by this,
for Lady Dauntrey seemed a strong woman; and, besides, the slight put
upon her by Vanno had left a raw wound which appreciation from others
helped superficially to heal. She had been so openly admired and
flattered at Monte Carlo that vanity had blossomed in her nature like a
quick-growing flower, though she had no idea that she had become vain.
Men looked at her with the look which is a tribute from the whole sex.
She could hardly bear it that the One Man should disapprove.

Those impecunious painters who haunt the open-air restaurants at Monte
Carlo, on the chance of selling a five-minute portrait, had buzzed round
her like bees round a honey-pot, but they were not the only ones. Two
artists of some renown had got themselves introduced through
acquaintances the Casino had given her, and begged her to sit to them.
Also it was true, as gossip said, that the artist she had met in the
train had arrived, and hastened to renew the acquaintance. He had
painted her portrait. She had paid for it and--burnt it. She, the quiet
schoolgirl, the earnest postulant, the novice who had never thought of
her own face, who for a year had not seen it in a mirror or missed the
sight of it, knew herself now for a beauty, a charming figure of
importance in this strange, concrete little world where Hercules
entertained his guests. And then, to be despised by the one person who
occupied her thoughts, despised and thrust away at the very moment when
he confessed to loving her! It was a blow to the woman's pride which had
not consciously stooped to unworthiness, and a still sharper hurt to her
new vanit