ther woman whom he liked better, an image in his heart which refused
to yield precedence.

On that evening to which allusion has been made, when Rowland was left
alone between the starlight and the waves with the sudden knowledge
that Mary Garland was to become another man's wife, he had made, after a
while, the simple resolution to forget her. And every day since, like a
famous philosopher who wished to abbreviate his mourning for a faithful
servant, he had said to himself in substance--"Remember to forget Mary
Garland." Sometimes it seemed as if he were succeeding; then, suddenly,
when he was least expecting it, he would find her name, inaudibly, on
his lips, and seem to see her eyes meeting his eyes. All this made him
uncomfortable, and seemed to portend a possible discord. Discord was not
to his taste; he shrank from imperious passions, and the idea of finding
himself jealous of an unsuspecting friend was absolutely repulsive. More
than ever, then, the path of duty was to forget Mary Garland, and he
cultivated oblivion, as we may say, in the person of Miss Blanchard. Her
fine temper, he said to himself, was a trifle cold and conscious, her
purity prudish, perhaps, her culture pedantic. But since he was obliged
to give up hopes of Mary Garland, Providence owed him a compensation,
and he had fits of angry sadness in which it seemed to him that to
attest his right to sentimental satisfaction he would be capable of
falling in love with a woman he absolutely detested, if she were the
best that came in his way. And what was the use, after all, of bothering
about a possible which was only, perhaps, a dream? Even if Mary Garland
had been free, what right had he to assume that he would have pleased
her? The actual was good enough. Miss Blanchard had beautiful hair, and
if she was a trifle old-maidish, there is nothing like matrimony for
curing old-maidishness.

Madame Grandoni, who had formed with the companion of Rowland's rides
an alliance which might have been called defensive on the part of the
former and attractive on that of Miss Blanchard, was an excessively ugly
old lady, highly esteemed in Roman society for her homely benevolence
and her shrewd and humorous good sense. She had been the widow of a
German archaeologist, who had come to Rome in the early ages as an
attache of the Prussian legation on the Capitoline. Her good sense had
been wanting on but a single occasion, that of her second marriage. This
occasion wa