ven't I?"

She asked it earnestly. Artois had never heard her speak quite like
this before, with a curious deliberation that was nevertheless without
self-consciousness. Before he could answer she added, abruptly, as if
correcting, or even almost condemning herself:

"I can put it much better than that. I have."

Artois leaned forward. Something, he did not quite know what, made him
feel suddenly a deep interest in what Vere said--a strong curiosity
even.

"You have put it much better?" he said.

Vere suddenly looked conscious. A faint wave of red went over her face
and down to her small neck. Her hands moved and parted. She seemed half
ashamed of something for a minute.

"Madre doesn't know," she murmured, as if she were giving him a reason
for something. "It isn't interesting," she added. "Except, of course, to
me."

Artois was watching her.

"I think you really want to tell me," he said now.

"Oh yes, in a way I do. I have been half wanting to for a long time--but
only half."

"And now?"

She looked at him, but almost instantly looked down again, with a sort
of shyness he had never seen in her before. And her eyes had been full
of a strange and beautiful sensitiveness.

"Never mind, Vere," he said quickly, obedient to those eyes, and
responding to their delicate subtlety. "We all have our righteous
secrets, and should all respect the righteous secrets of others."

"Yes, I think we should. And I know you would be the very last, at least
Madre and you, to--I think I'm being rather absurd, really." The last
words were said with a sudden change of tone to determination, as if
Vere were taking herself to task. "I'm making a lot of almost nothing.
You see, if I am a woman, as Gaspare is making out, I'm at any rate a
very young one, am I not?"

"The youngest that exists."

As he said that Artois thought, "Mon Dieu! If the Marchesino could only
see her now!"

"If humor is cruel, Monsieur Emile," Vere continued, "you will laugh at
me. For I am sure, if I tell you--and I know now I'm going to--you will
think this fuss is as ridiculous as the German's cold in the head, and
poor legs, and all. I wrote that about the sea."

She said the last sentence with a sort of childish defiance.

"Wait," said Artois. "Now I begin to understand."

"What?"

"All those hours spent in your room. Your mother thought you were
reading."

"No," she said, still rather defiantly; "I've been writing that, and
other things-