of welcome, and the face, which I had been comparing in my mind to that of
Guido's Cenci, became transformed by the arch and exquisite smile of a
Greuse. For more than two years I had had no intercourse with any of my
nationality. I could conceive the sound of his native tongue under such
circumstances moving a man in a curious unexpected fashion.

"I babbled some commonplace reply, after which there was silence while we
stood opposite each other, she looking at me expectantly. At length, with
a sigh checked by a smile and an overtone of sadness in a voice that yet
tried to be sprightly:

"'Am I then so changed, Mr. Marshfield?' she asked. And all at once I knew
her: the girl whose nightingale throat had redeemed the desolation of the
evenings at Rathdrum, whose sunny beauty had seemed (even to my
celebrated cold-blooded æstheticism) worthy to haunt a man's dreams. Yes,
there was the subtle curve of the waist, the warm line of throat, the
dainty foot, the slender tip-tilted fingers--witty fingers, as I had
classified them--which I now shook like a true Briton, instead of availing
myself of the privilege the country gave me, and kissing her slender
wrist.

"But she was changed; and I told her so with unconventional frankness,
studying her closely as I spoke.

"'I am afraid,' I said gravely, 'that this place does not agree with you.'

"She shrank from my scrutiny with a nervous movement and flushed to the
roots of her red-brown hair. Then she answered coldly that I was wrong,
that she was in excellent health, but that she could not expect any more
than other people to preserve perennial youth (I rapidly calculated she