n--or believe I have seen--that though you may like these
people, may be amused by them, may even court them, not one of them is
more to you now than they were in Venice. That is what I believe. Am I
right?"

And Clodagh--in sudden relief, in sudden gratitude for his faith--had
caught his hand passionately between her own, and looked up confidently
into his face.

"You are right!" she had cried. "Oh, you are right! They are nothing to
me! Nothing!--nothing!"

And Gore, moved by her vehemence, had leant forward and looked deeply
into the eyes that challenged his.

"Not one of them is anything to you--in any way?"

"Not one of them is anything to me--in any way."

That had been the only moment of personal doubt or question that had
obtruded itself upon the first hours of mutual comprehension. Until
more than half the programme had been danced through, and the older
guests had begun to depart, they had walked together up and down the
solitary paths of the old garden upon which the music-room opened--a
garden where thyme and lavender and a hundred other sweet-smelling
plants bordered the prim flower-beds and recalled by their scents the
days when the harpsichord had tinkled out across the silence of the
night. As they paced slowly to and fro, they had made many confessions,
sweet in the confessing, of thoughts and desires and doubts felt by
each--when each had believed the other out of reach; and quietly,
hesitatingly, eagerly they had touched upon the future, upon the days
when Clodagh's mourning should be over and they could permit the world
to share their secret--upon the days, still later, when their lives
should no longer be separate things, but one perfect whole.

Gore was an unusual, and a very delightful lover. The slight suggestion
of reticence that marked him in ordinary life clung to him even in
these intimate moments. He gave the impression that behind his extreme
quiet, his almost gentle deference of manner, lay reserves of feeling,
of dignity, of strength that he himself had, perhaps, never fathomed.

And for this very reserve--this courtliness--this indescribable
fineness of bearing, Clodagh felt her own nature leap forth in renewed
admiration.

At last, at one o'clock, they had parted, he to smoke and pace the
garden paths until the early summer dawn broke over the woods; she to
wait by the open window of Nance's bedroom, with her face buried in her
hands, her whole being alive and tingling with t