She made no reply, and, escorted slowly by her cicerone along an aisle adorned with statuary and pictures, was soon deep in the mysteries of ecclesiological lore.
We have it on the authority of a gentleman who lived at Stratford-on-Avon that jealousy is green-eyed. If so, my eyes must have resembled emeralds as they followed the pair. Of the two candidates for her smiles, which was the favourite? During breakfast I fancied it might be Angelo; while escorting her to the cathedral I felt certain it was I; now once more my rival's star seemed in the ascendant.
"And probably," I thought, "she will smile sweetly on me at her return. Verily woman is an enigma!"
"What are you thinking of?" asked my uncle, as I took a seat beside him.
"Of inditing a sonnet on the mutability of women."
"Ah! take my advice, and never attempt to understand a woman or her motives. You will never succeed."
"Daphne's motives are pretty obvious," I replied, glancing darkly at the distant figure of the artist.
My uncle's only reply was a smile, that resembled his opinion of women, inasmuch as it was very oracular and quite impossible to understand, and he resumed his reading of Goethe's Faust—a work of which he was extremely fond, carrying it about with him wherever he went, and favouring us hourly with quotations appropriate to any state of circumstances we happened to be in.
Presently he looked up from his reading, and said: "Has it never occurred to you that Daphne may have a motive in giving a little encouragement to Angelo—a motive, totally free from any love for him?"
"I am afraid I don't understand."