believer like your brother read a Kempis so feelingly, I very
nearly lose my faith in Christianity as well. I like him for one other
reason, dear, because he is your brother. But that is all! Oh! Jeanne
Dessalle says such strange things sometimes--such strange things! I do
not understand--I really do not understand. But _warte nur, du Raethsel_,
as my governess used to say."

"What am I to wait for?"

Noemi threw her arm round her friend's neck, "I will drag your soul with
so fine a net that it will bring beautiful great pearls to the surface,
perhaps some sea-weed as well, and a little mud from the bottom, or even
a very tiny _pioeuvre_." "You do not know me," answered Jeanne. "You are
the only one of my friends who does not know me."

"Of course. You imagine that only those who adore you really know you?
Indeed, this belief that everybody adores you is a craze of yours."

Jeanne made the little pouting grimace with which all her friends were
familiar.

"What a foolish girl," she said; but at once softened the expression
with a kiss and a half-sad, half-quizzical smile.

"Women, as I have always told you, do adore me. Do you mean to say that
you do not?"

"_Mais point du tout_," exclaimed Noemi. Jeanne's eyes sparkled with
mischief and kindness.

"In Italian we say: _Si, di tutto cuore_," she answered.

The Dessalles, brother and sister, had spent the preceding summer at
Maloja. Jeanne striving to make herself a pleasant companion, and hiding
as best she could her incurable wound; Carlino searching out traces
of Nietzsche in mystic hours round Sils Maria or in worldly moments
flitting like a butterfly from one woman to another, frequently dining
at St. Moritz, or at Pontresina, making music with a military attache
of the German Embassy at Rome, or with Noemi d'Arxel, and discussing
religious questions with Noemi's sister and brother-in-law. The two
d'Arxel sisters, orphans, were Belgian by birth, but of Dutch and
Protestant ancestry. The elder, Maria, after a peculiar and romantic
courtship, had married the old Italian philosopher Giovanni Selva, who
would be famous in his own country, did Italians take a deeper interest
in theological questions; for Selva is perhaps the truest representative
of progressive Catholicism in Italy. Maria had become a Roman Catholic
before her marriage. The Selvas spent the winter in Rome, the rest of
the year at Subiaco. Noemi, who had remained true to the faith of her
fathers,