me?" Bernard murmured quickly.

"Recognize you?"

"Why do you seem to forget our meeting at Siena?"

She might have answered if she had answered immediately; but she
hesitated, and while she did so something happened at the other end of
the room which caused her to shift her glance. A green velvet portiere
suspended in one of the door-ways--not that through which our
friends had passed--was lifted, and Gordon Wright stood there, holding
it up, and looking at them. His companions were behind him.

"Ah, here they are!" cried Gordon, in his loud, clear voice.

This appeared to strike Angela Vivian as an interruption, and Bernard
saw it very much in the same light.

CHAPTER VIII

He forbore to ask her his question again--she might tell him at her
convenience. But the days passed by, and she never told him--she had
her own reasons. Bernard talked with her very often; conversation formed
indeed the chief entertainment of the quiet little circle of which
he was a member. They sat on the terrace and talked in the mingled
starlight and lamplight, and they strolled in the deep green forests and
wound along the side of the gentle Baden hills, under the influence of
colloquial tendencies. The Black Forest is a country of almost unbroken
shade, and in the still days of midsummer the whole place was covered
with a motionless canopy of verdure. Our friends were not extravagant
or audacious people, and they looked at Baden life very much from the
outside--they sat aloof from the brightly lighted drama of professional
revelry. Among themselves as well, however, a little drama went
forward in which each member of the company had a part to play. Bernard
Longueville had been surprised at first at what he would have called
Miss Vivian's approachableness--at the frequency with which he
encountered opportunities for sitting near her and entering into
conversation. He had expected that Gordon Wright would deem himself to
have established an anticipatory claim upon the young lady's attention,
and that, in pursuance of this claim, he would occupy a recognized place
at her side. Gordon was, after all, wooing her; it was very natural
he should seek her society. In fact, he was never very far off; but
Bernard, for three or four days, had the anomalous consciousness of
being still nearer. Presently, however, he perceived that he owed this
privilege simply to his friend's desire that he should become acquainted
with Miss Vivian--sho