rshipping
himself rather than his ancestors, after all, you know. But a little
turn of it will serve to fill in a gap and lessen the monotony of your
visit. I am afraid you must be a good deal bored, Helen. It must seem
rather terribly humdrum here after Paris and Naples, and--well--most
places, at that rate, as you know them."

Richard shifted his position. And the crystal moon encompassed by
golden bands, crossing and intersecting one another like those of a
sidereal sphere, gleamed as with an inward and unearthly light,
swinging slowly upon the movement of his hand.

"You must feel here as though the clock had been put back two or three
centuries. I know we move slowly, and conduct ourselves with tedious
deliberation. And so, you understand, you mustn't let me keep you. Just
look at what you like of these odds and ends, and then depart without
scruple. It's rather a fraud, in any case, my showing them to you.
Julius March, as I told you, is much better qualified to."

"Julius March, Julius March," Madame de Vallorbes broke in. "Do, I
beseech you, dear Cousin Richard, leave him to the pious retirement of
his study. Is he not middle-aged, and a priest into the bargain?"

"Unquestionably," Dickie said. "But, pardon me, I don't quite see what
that has to do with it."

Thereupon Madame de Vallorbes made a very naughty, little grimace and
drummed with her finger-tips upon the table.

"La! la!" she cried, "you're no better than all the rest. Commend me to
a clever man for incapacity to apprehend what is patent to the
intelligence of the most ordinary woman. Look about you."--Helen
sketched in their surroundings with a quick descriptive gesture.
"Observe the lights and shadows. The ghostly wavings of those pale
curtains. Smell the potpourri and spices. Think of the ancestor
worship. Listen to the protesting wind and rain. See the mysterious
treasure you hold in your hand. And then ask me what middle-age and the
clerical profession have to do with all this! Why, nothing, just
precisely nothing, nothing in the whole world. That's the point of my
argument. They'd ruin the sentiment, blight the romance, hopelessly
blight it--for me at least."

The conversation was slightly embarrassed, both Helen and Richard
talking at length, yet at random. But she knew that it was thus, and
not otherwise, that it behooved them to talk. For that which they said
mattered not in the least. The thing said served as a veil, as a cloak,
mer