"Because you are a man! Why, she can talk to me, and tell me little confidential things that she will love telling, and couldn't so much as mention before you. Vanno says she has no relatives with her, but is staying with friends; and I will try to make her feel as if I were a sister."
"Marie, you are good!" exclaimed Vanno, his eyes warm with gratitude. After all, his sister-in-law was not disapproving, as he had begun to fear. "She's perfectly right, Angelo. It will be splendid of her to go alone."
"I begin to see the point of view," said Angelo. "I might have known. She's always right."
Marie smiled at him sweetly and softly; and as her husband's eyes met hers a beautiful look of love and understanding flashed from the hidden soul of the woman to the soul of the man. Vanno saw it, and thrilled. So would it be with him and the girl he loved.
XXVII
The motor was ordered for the Princess at a quarter to three. She wished to arrive early at Mrs. Winter's, in order to have her chat with Miss Grant before tea time. Her idea was to ask only for the guest, not for the hostess, and be ready to leave before the hour when extraneous and irrelevant guests might be expected to invade the chaplain's drawing-room. There was, it appeared, a telephone in the apartment-house where the Winters lived, and Vanno, getting into communication with Mary after numerous difficulties, begged her to be in, and if possible alone, for a visit from his sister-in-law. It was arranged that the curé, who had never been in a motor-car, should be dropped at the foot of a convenient short cut to Roquebrune, and Angelo and Vanno would go on with Marie to Monte Carlo. Having left her at the Winters' door, Angelo meant to walk with Vanno to his hotel, expecting later to pick up his wife again. When the curé had bidden them goodbye, however, Marie proposed a modification of the plan.
"Poor Angelo has been pining for Monte Carlo, I'm sure," she said, laughing, her bright eyes and unusually pink cheeks alluring and mysterious, under the thickly patterned black veil she had put on with a large black velvet hat. "He's concealed his feelings well, I must say, out of compliment to me, because I was so good about the villa. At first I didn't want to have a house at Cap Martin. From all I'd heard, I thought the Riviera must be so sophisticated—and somehow I've always detested the idea of Monte Carlo. But you know, Vanno, how Angelo fell in love with the Villa Mirasole when he visited the Grand Duke years ago. He must have written you how he set his heart, even then, on having it for his honeymoon if he married. I gave up my objections provided he would promise that I needn't go to Monte Carlo, and that he wouldn't be always running over there himself. Now, I'm glad, for I love the villa. And you see, I'm on the way to Monte Carlo of my own accord! The next thing is to tell Angelo he may play about there as long as he likes. I shall keep the motor waiting while I'm at Miss Grant's, and go back in it alone whenever I feel inclined. You needn't come to fetch me. I'd rather not."
Both men looked disappointed: Vanno because he wanted to hear Marie's impressions of his adored one without delay, confident that they would be favourable; Angelo, because since their marriage he and his wife had not been parted for a single hour. This was the first sign Marie had shown of wishing to assert independence.
"Are you sure you're not saying this for my sake?" Angelo inquired anxiously. "I don't want to hang about Monte Carlo. I——"