"She forgets; I did once; only a few weeks ago," he said briefly; and
the girl dropped her hands wearily and leaned her head against the
dowager's couch.

"Maman, our good friend is going to talk matrimony again," she said
plaintively; "and if he does, I warn you, though it is only mid-day, I
shall go asleep;" and her eyes closed tightly as though to make the
threat more effective.

"You see," said the old lady, raising one chiding finger, "it is
really lamentable, Loris, that your sentimental tendencies have grown
into a steady habit."

"I agree," he assented; "but consider. She assails me--she, a saintly
little judge in grey! She lectures, preaches at me! Tells me I lack
virtue! But more is the pity for me; she will not remember that one
virtue was most attractive to me, and she bade me abandon it."

"Tell him," said the girl with her eyes still closed, "to not miscall
things; no one is all virtue."

"Pardon; that is what you seemed to me, and I never before fancied
that the admirable virtues would find me so responsive, when, pouf!
with one word you demolished all my castle of delight and now condemn
me that I am an outlaw from those elevating fancies."

He spoke with such a comical air of self-pity that the old lady
laughed and the young Marquise opened her eyes.

"A truce, Monsieur Loris; you are amusing, but you like to pose as one
of the rejected and disconsolate when you have women to listen. It is
all because you are just a little theatrical, is it not? How effective
it must be with your Parisiennes!"

"My faith!" he exclaimed, turning to the dowager in dismay; "and only
three months since she emerged from the convent! What then do they not
teach in those sanctuaries!"

The girl arose, made him a mocking obeisance, and swinging the turban
in her hand passed into the alcoved music room; a little later an
Italian air, soft, dreamy, drifted to them from the keys of the
piano.

"She will make a sensation," prophesied Dumaresque, sagely.

"You mean socially? No; if left to herself she would ignore society;
it is not necessary to her; only her affection for me brings her from
her studies now. Should I die tomorrow she would go back to them next
week."

"But why, why, why? If she were unattractive one could understand; but
being what she is--"

"Being what she is, she has a fever to know all the facts of earth and
all the guesses at heaven."

"And bars out marriage!"

"Not for other people," reto