“I think it is.”

“But why should that be?”

“Don’t you think that Monsieur Emile can tell you much better than I? I feel all the things, you know, that he can explain.”

There was a touch of something that was like a half-hidden irony in her voice.

“Monsieur Emile! Yes, I think he understands almost everything about people,” said Vere, quite without irony. “But could a man explain such a thing as well as a woman? I don’t think so.”

“We have the instincts, perhaps, men the vocabulary. Come, Vere, I want to look over into the Saint’s Pool and see what those men are doing.”

Vere laughed.

“Take care, Madre, or Gaspare will be jealous.”

A soft look came into Hermione’s face.

“Gaspare and I know each other,” she said, quietly.