It was perceived by no one, however, but a certain dark elderly lady, who
was sitting restlessly silent beside Miss Manisty. Lucy Foster had noticed
her as a new-comer, and believed that her name was Madame Variani.

As for Eleanor Burgoyne, she sat on Manisty's left while he talked--it was
curious to notice how a place was always made for her beside him!--her head
raised a little towards him, her eyes bright and fixed. The force that
breathed from him passed through her frail being, quickening every pulse of
life. She neither criticised nor accepted what he said. It was the man's
splendid vitality that subdued and mastered her.

Yet she alone knew what no one else suspected. At the beginning of the
conversation Manisty had placed himself behind an old stone table of oblong
shape and thick base, of which there were several in the garden. Round it
grew up grasses and tall vetches which had sown themselves among the gaping
stones of the terrace. Nothing, therefore, could be seen of the talker as
he leant carelessly across the table but the magnificent head, and the
shoulders on which it was so freely and proudly carried.

Anybody noticing the effect--for it was an effect--would have thought it
a mere happy accident. Eleanor Burgoyne alone knew that it was conscious.
She had seen the same pose, the same concealment practised too often to be
mistaken. But it made no difference whatever to the spell that held her.
The small vanities and miseries of Manisty's nature were all known to
her--and alas! she would not have altered one of them!

* * * * *

When the Cardinal rose to go, two Italian girls, who had come with their
brother, the Count Casaleschi, ran forward, and curtseying kissed the