"So he did meet her, after all?" the Duchessa said.

"Yes, he met her in the end," Peter answered.

They were seated under the gay white awning, against the bright

perspective of lawn, lake, and mountains, on the terrace at

Ventirose, where Peter was paying his dinner-call. The August

day was hot and still and beautiful--a day made of gold and

velvet and sweet odours. The Duchessa lay back languidly,

among the crisp silk cushions, in her low, lounging chair; and

Peter, as he looked at her, told himself that he must be

cautious, cautious.

"Yes, he met her in the end," he said.

"Well--? And then--?" she questioned, with a show of

eagerness, smiling into his eyes. "What happened? Did she

come up to his expectations? Or was she just the usual

disappointment? I have been pining--oh, but pining--to hear

the continuation of the story."

She smiled into his eyes, and his heart fluttered. "I must be

cautious," he told himself. "In more ways than one, this is a

crucial moment." At the same time, as a very part of his

caution, he must appear entirely nonchalant and candid.

"Oh, no--tutt' altro," he said, with an assumption of

nonchalant airiness and candid promptness. "She 'better

bettered' his expectations--she surpassed his fondest. She was

a thousand times more delightful than he had dreamed--though,

as you know, he had dreamed a good deal. Pauline de Fleuvieres

turned out to be the feeblest, faintest echo of her."

The Duchessa meditated for an instant.

"It seems impossible. It's one of those situations in which a

disenchantment seems the foregone conclusion," she said, at

last.

"It seems so, indeed," assented Peter; "but disenchantment,

there was none. She was all that he had imagined, and

infinitely more. She was the substance--he had imagined the

shadow. He had divined her, as it were, from a single angle,

and there were many angles. Pauline was the pale reflection of

one side of her--a pencil-sketch in profile."

The Duchessa shook her head, marvelling, and smiled again.

"You pile wonder upon wonder," she said. "That the reality

should excel the poet's ideal! That the cloud-capped towers

which looked splendid from afar, with all the glamour of

distance, should prove to be more splendid still, on close

inspection! It's dead against the accepted theory of things.

And that any woman should be nicer than that adorable Pauline!

You tax belief. But I want to know what happened. Had she

read his book?"




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