colour rose faintly
in his face, then sank away.

"Quite sure?" he asked, controlling his voice.

"I mean, in the end, you know. She will marry you in the end. I am
convinced of it. But I think I had better not ask her just yet."

There were matters in regard to which she was distinctly afraid of her
daughter.

"May I?" Guido enquired. "Will you let me ask her to marry me, when I
think that the time has come?"

"Certainly! That is----" The Countess believed that she ought to hesitate.
"After all, we have only known you a fortnight. That is not long. Is
it?"

"No. But, on the other hand, you had never seen me when you and my aunt
agreed that your daughter and I should be married."

"How did you know that we had talked about it?"

"It was rather evident," Guido answered, with a smile.

The artlessness which is often a charm in a young girl looks terribly
like foolishness if it lasts till a woman is forty. Yet in old age it
may seem charming again, as if second childhood brought with it a second
innocence.

Guido was an Italian only by his mother, and from his father he
inherited the profoundly complicated character of races that had ruled
the world for a thousand years or more, and not always either wisely or
justly. Under his indifference and quiet dislike of all action, as well
as of most emotions, he had always felt the conflicting instincts
towards good and evil, and the contempt of consequences bordering on
folly, if not upon real insanity, which had brought about the decline
and fall of his father's kingdom. The perfect simplicity of the real
Italian character when in a state of equilibrium always amused him, and
often pleased him, and he had a genuine admiration for the splendidly
violent contrasts which it develops when roused by passion. He could
read it like an open book, and predict what it would do in almost any
circumstances.

For the first time in his life, he felt something of its directness in
himself, moving to a definite aim through the maze of useless
complications, hesitations, and turns and returns of thought with which
he was familiar in his own character. He smiled at the idea that he
might end by resembling Lamberti, with whom to think was to feel, and to
feel was to act. Were there two selves in him, of which the one was in
love, and the other was not? That was an amusing theory, and a fortnight
ago it would have been pleasant to sit in his room at night, among his
Duerers, his Remb