was the islet where dwelt the child he meant to know.



CHAPTER VII

Although Hermione had told Artois that she could not find complete
rest and happiness in her child, that she could not live again in Vere
fully and intensely as she had lived once, as she still had it in her
surely to live, she and Vere were in a singularly close relationship.
They had never yet been separated for more than a few days. Vere had
not been to school, and much of her education had been undertaken by
her mother. In Florence she had been to classes and lectures. She had
had lessons in languages, French, German, and Italian, in music and
drawing. But Hermione had been her only permanent teacher, and until
her sixteenth birthday she had never been enthusiastic about anything
without carrying her enthusiasm to her mother, for sympathy,
explanation, or encouragement.

Sorrow had not quenched the elan of Hermione's nature. What she had
told Artois had been true--she was not a finished woman, nor would she
ever be, so long as she was alive and conscious. Her hunger for love,
her passionate remembrance of the past, her incapacity to sink herself
in any one since her husband's death, her persistent, though
concealed, worship of his memory, all these things proved her
vitality. Artois was right when he said that she was a force. There
was something in her that was red-hot, although she was now a middle-
aged woman. She needed much more than most people, because she had
much more than most people have to give.