little, high-niched, ordinary room which served her as a studio, and
find her working at a panel six inches square, at an open casement,
profiled against the deep blue Roman sky. She received him with a
meek-eyed dignity that made her seem like a painted saint on a church
window, receiving the daylight in all her being. The breath of reproach
passed her by with folded wings. And yet Rowland wondered why he did not
like her better. If he failed, the reason was not far to seek. There was
another woman whom he liked better, an image in his heart which refused
to yield precedence.

On that evening to which allusion has been made, when Rowland was left
alone between the starlight and the waves with the sudden knowledge
that Mary Garland was to become another man's wife, he had made, after a
while, the simple resolution to forget her. And every day since, like a
famous philosopher who wished to abbreviate his mourning for a faithful
servant, he had said to himself in substance--"Remember to forget Mary
Garland." Sometimes it seemed as if he were succeeding; then, suddenly,
when he was least expecting it, he would find her name, inaudibly, on
his lips, and seem to see her eyes meeting his eyes. All this made him
uncomfortable, and seemed to portend a possible discord. Discord was not
to his taste; he shrank from imperious passions, and the idea of finding
himself jealous of an unsuspecting friend was absolutely repulsive. More
than ever, then, the path of duty was to forget Mary Garland, and he
cultivated oblivion, as we may say, in the person of Miss Blanchard. Her
fine temper, he said to himself, was a trifle cold and conscious, her
purity prudish, perhaps, her culture pedantic. But since he was obliged
to give up hopes of Mary Garland, Providence owed him a compensation,
and he had fits of angry sadness in which it seemed to him that to
attest his right to sentimental satisfaction he would be capable of
falling in love with a woman he absolutely detested, if she were the