is four years since I saw you," she said.

And from her lowered voice it seemed as if her life were rooted in
memory alone.

"Four years," said Michael, who, promising young diplomat as he was,
appeared only able to repeat parrot-wise her last words after her.

A pause.

"Do you know my husband?"

"I do not."

"May I introduce him to you?"

Fay made a little sign, and the duke approached, superb, decorated,
dignified, with the polished pallor as if the skin were a little too
tight, which is the Charybdis of many who have avoided the Scylla of
wrinkles.

The elder Italian and the grave, fair, young Englishman bowed to each
other, were made known to each other.

That night as the duke drove home with his wife he said to her in his
admirable English:

"Your young cousin is an enthusiast, a dreamer, a sensitive, what your
Tennyson calls a Sir Galahad. In Italy we make of such men a priest, a
cardinal. He is not an _homme d'affaires_. It was not well to put him
into diplomacy. One may make a religion of art. One may even for a time
make a religion of a woman. But of the English diplomacy one does not
make a religion."

Fay lay awake that night. From a disused pigeon-hole in her mind she
drew out and unfolded to its short length that attractive remnant, that
half-forgotten episode of her teens. She remembered everything--I mean
everything she wished to remember. Michael's face had recalled it all,
those exquisite days which he had taken so much more seriously than she
had, the sudden ruthless intervention of Lady Bellairs, the end of the
daydream. Fay, whose attention had been adroitly diverted to other
channels, had never wondered how he took their separation at the time.
Now that she saw him again she was aware that he had taken it--to heart.

During that sleepless night Fay persuaded herself that Michael had not
been alone in his suffering. She also had felt the parting with equal
poignancy.

They met again a few days later by chance in an old cloistered, deserted
garden. How often she had walked in that garden as she was doing now
with English friends! His presence gave the place its true significance.
They met as those who have between them the bond of a common sorrow.

"And what have you been doing all these four years?" she asked him, as
they wandered somewhat apart.

"I have been working."

"You never came to say good-bye before you went to that place in Germany
to study."

"I was told I had be