Carmela was right. At this time she pastured on dreams and fancies.
Her emotions were not starved, but they were kept down and only
allowed to nibble. She thought often of the man who had been kind to
her, and sometimes she wished that he had kissed her. It would have
been something to remember. Often, if she closed her eyes, she could
almost cheat herself into believing him there close beside her, his
brown gaze upon her, his lips quivering with a strange eagerness that
troubled her and yet made her glad. Jean Avenel. It was a good name.

He had gone to America and she assured herself that he must have
forgotten her, but she did not try to forget him. She nursed the
little wistful sorrow for what might have been, as women will, and
would not bind up the scratch he had inflicted. Already she had
learned that some pain is pleasant, and that a stinging sweetness may
be distilled from tears. Sometimes at night, when it was too hot to
sleep and she lay watching the fine silver lines of moonlight passing
across the floor, she asked herself if she would see him again, and
when, and how, and wove all manner of cobweb fancies about what might
be.

She ripened quickly as fruit ripens in the hot sunshine of Italy; her
lips were more sweetly curved and coloured, and her blue eyes were
shadowed now. They were like sapphires seen through a veil.

Maria gave her the opera-glasses and she raised them to scan the
house. It was a gala night and the theatre was hung with flags and
brilliantly illuminated. There were candles everywhere, and the great
chandelier that hung from the ceiling was lit. The heat was stifling,
and the incessant fluttering of fans gave the women in the _parterre_
and in the crowded boxes a look of unrest that was belied by their
placid, expressionless faces. Many glanced up at the Menotti in their
box. There was some criticism of Gemma's Lucchese.

"He is ugly, but she could not expect to get a husband here where she
is so well known. They say--"

"The Capuan Psyche and a rose from the garden of Eden," said a man in
the stage box, who had discerned Olive's fresh, eager prettiness
beyond the pale beauty of the Odalisque.

He handed the glasses to his neighbour. "Choose."

"The _role_ of Paris is a thankless one; it involved death in the end
for the shepherd prince."

"Yes, but you are not a shepherd prince."

The man addressed was handsome as a faun might be and as a tiger is.
Not sleek, but lean and