et it had seemed very sensible to advise him to do nothing in
a hurry. Everything else followed logically upon that first step.

It was the inevitable, and it was therefore already in nature tragic,
before active tragedy took the stage. Yet Angela did not feel its
presence, nor any presentiment of the future, when she bade Giovanni
farewell ten days after he had first been to see her in Madame
Bernard's apartment.

What she felt was just the common pain of parting that has been the
lot of loving men and women since the beginning; it is not the less
sharp because almost every one has felt it, but it is as useless to
describe it as it would be to write a chapter about a bad toothache, a
sick headache, or an attack of gout. Angela was a brave girl and set
herself the task of bearing it quietly because it was a natural and
healthy consequence of loving dearly. It was not like the wrench of
saying good-bye to a lover on his way to meet almost certain death.
She told herself, and Giovanni told her, that in all probability he
was not going to encounter any danger worse than may chance in a day's
hunting over a rough country or in a steeple-chase, and that the risk
was certainly far less than that of fighting a duel in Italy, where
duelling is not a farce as it is in some countries. He would come back
within a few months, with considerable credit and the certainty of
promotion; it was a hundred to one that he would, so that this was
merely a common parting, to be borne without complaint. He thought so
himself, and they consoled each other by making plans for their
married life, which would be so much nearer when he came home.

Madame Bernard left them alone for an hour in the sitting-room and
then came in to say good-bye to Giovanni herself, bringing Coco
perched upon her wrist, but silent and well-behaved. Angela was pale,
and perhaps her deep mourning made her look paler than she was, but
her face was as quiet and collected as Giovanni's. He took leave of
the governess almost affectionately.

'Take care of her, Madame,' he said, 'and write me some news of her
now and then through the War Office. It may reach me, or it may not!'

He kissed Angela's hand, looked into her eyes silently for a moment,
and went out.

'Marche! 'cre nom d'un nom!' screamed the parrot after him, as if he
were going too slowly.

But this time Angela could not speak of him with her friend just after
he was gone, and when Madame Bernard tried to