AN INCOMPLETE MADONNA.
"She is a maid
Who hath a look prophetic in her eyes,
A longing for--she knows not what herself; Yet if by chance when kneeling rapt in prayer, She raised her eyes to Mother Mary's face, Within her breast a thought--till then unguessed, Amazing all her dreamings virginal, Would show her, by that vision motherly, The something needed to complete her life."
"Then what is she?"
"She is an Incomplete Madonna."
They were near the end of their journey when Gartney made this reply, and having reduced the chaos of books and papers into something like order, they were both sitting up with their garments in a more presentable condition, smoking cigarettes, and talking about the Erringtons.
This family, consisting of two people, male and female, bride and bridegroom, were staying at the Villa Tagni on Lake Como, and Sir Guy Errington, being a cousin of Gartney's, had asked his eccentric relative to pay them a visit while in the vicinity, which he had consented to do. This being the case, Otterburn, who, unacquainted with the happy pair, except as to their name and relationship to his friend, was cross-examining Eustace with a view to finding out as much as he could about them before being introduced.
Sir Guy, according to his cynical cousin, was a handsome young fellow, with three ideas of primitive simplicity in his head, namely, shooting, hunting, and dining. Quite of the orthodox English type, according to the Gallic "it's-a-fine-day-let-us-go-and-kill-something" idea, so Otterburn, having met many such heroes of sporting instincts, asked no more questions regarding the gentleman, but being moved by the inevitable curiosity of man concerning woman, put the three orthodox questions which form a social trinity of perfection in masculine eyes.
"Is she pretty?"
Silence on the part of Mr. Eustace Gartney.
"Is she young?"