The brown-haired nymph of the passion-vine was half reclining on a lounge with the happy, musing look of one who seldom muses. I had meant to take the initiative with her, accepting her as Flora's friend, and gradually admitting her to intimacy. To my surprise, I found myself responding gratefully to her pleasant welcome, and wishing in my hidden soul she might find something in me to like. Where lies her power? As yet I cannot tell. Vane is very little changed in ten years; lines deepened but not altered. There is evidently a charming relation between him and his wife. She is the stronger of the two in character, I fancy—a simple, genuine person, what more I do not yet know.
II.
Nicholas Vane's library overlooked the garden of Palazzo Beldoni. The dimensions of the room, the windows curtained with vines in the month of April, the glowing sunlight that forced its way in between swaying branches, all spoke of Italy; but New England comfort held a cozy reign within doors; husband and wife were occupied together before the great-study table covered with plans of fortifications; she in making extracts from books of reference, he in working out the minor details of a design.
"How odd that I should have forgotten!" Mary said suddenly, pausing in her work with a look of surprise and recollection. "Flora charged me to tell you that Lady Sackvil has written to say that she is coming here. She will arrive this afternoon in all probability, and I was to have told you of it yesterday. However," she added after a pause, "you don't seem to take much interest in my great piece of news, so the delay has done no harm."
"Amelia Grant is coming—Lady Sackvil, I mean!" Nicholas said slowly, but without pausing in his work. "Very well, I hope you will like her."
"It never occurred to me not to like her," Mary answered. "In the first place, she is Flora's sister; in the second place, she is a very fascinating woman; in the third place, she is a riddle I hope to solve; in the fourth place—"
"In the fourth place," exclaimed Vane, throwing down his pencil with one of those short laughs that quench enthusiasm and kindle wrath at the same moment; "in the fourth place, my beloved Œdipus, she is a sorceress who will read you at sight. Amelia Grant is the mirror of the person she is with; when you fancy you are deciphering her, you will be simply gazing at a reflection of yourself—no unpleasant sight, I acknowledge," he added kindly, seeing that his rough answer had brought the color to her cheeks; "but it will not solve you the riddle. Look here, child. I am sorry Lady Sackvil is coming here. She is a worldly, heartless woman; full of ability, full of attraction; but let me tell you this: if eating your little innocent heart could afford her an afternoon's entertainment, she would not hesitate to do it."
He paused, rose and went to the window. Mary remained at the table, making sketches upon the baize cover with her pen-handle.
"She must play for us, though," said Captain Vane, coming out of a brown study and returning to his seat. "She was the cleverest amateur I have ever heard; and they say Lord Sackvil indulged every whim and carried her from Leipsic to Weimar, and from Weimar to Berlin, as her fancy suggested. She went through a conservatory course at Leipsic, and graduated most creditably. Yes, she is astonishingly clever, beyond dispute, and capable of great self-devotion to her art. Of all the persons I have known, men or women, she is the most impressionable, mobile, sympathetic, dramatic." And again he merged into a reverie, while Mary continued the ungrateful task of drawing on the table-cover.