yet she has a certain little _chic_ of her own."

Corona did not withdraw her fingers from her husband's caress. She was
used to it. After all, he was kind to her in his way. It would have been
absurd to have been jealous of the grossly flattering speeches he made to
other women; and indeed he was as fond of turning compliments to his wife
as to any one. It was a singular relation that had grown up between the
old man and the young girl he had married. Had he been less thoroughly a
man of the world, or had Corona been less entirely honest and loyal and
self-sacrificing, there would have been small peace in their wedlock. But
Astrardente, decayed roue and worn-out dandy as he was, was in love with
his wife; and she, in all the young magnificence of her beauty, submitted
to be loved by him, because she had promised that she would do so, and
because, having sworn, she regarded the breaking of her faith by the
smallest act of unkindness as a thing beyond the bounds of possibility.
It had been a terrible blow to her to discover that she cared for Don
Giovanni even in the way she believed she did, as a man whose society she
preferred to that of other men, and whose face it gave her pleasure to
see. She, too, had spent a sleepless night; and when she had risen in the
morning, she had determined to forget Giovanni, and if she could not
forget him, she had sworn that more than ever she would be all things to
her husband.

She wondered now, as Giovanni had known she would, why he had suddenly
thrown over his day's hunting in order to spend his time with Donna
Tullia; but she would not acknowledge, even to herself, that the dull
pain she felt near her heart, and that seemed to oppress her breathing,
bore any relation to the scene she had just witnessed. She shut her lips
tightly, and arranged the blanket for her husband.

"Madame Mayer is vulgar," she answered. "I suppose she cannot help it."

"Women can always help being vulgar," returned Astrardente. "I believe
she learned it from her husband. Women are not naturally like that.
Nevertheless she is an excellent match for Giovanni Saracinesca. Rich, by
millions. Undeniably handsome, gay--well, rather too gay; but Giovanni is
so serious that the contrast will be to their mutual advantage."

Corona was silent. There was nothing the old man disliked so much as
silence.

"Why do you not answer me?" he asked, rather petulantly.

"I do not know--I was thinking," said Corona, simpl