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Standing thus, they looked into each other's eyes, and the glory of the sun reflected back from Vanno's almost dazzled Mary. Never in her life had she known happiness like this.
"That's the eighth time in succession she's lost maximums round twenty-four," mumbled a man close to Vanno's shoulder, in a young, weak voice. "She deserves it, for being an idiot," petulantly replied a woman, in French, though the man had spoken in English. "I was her mascotte. I showed her how to play and how to win; but I was not good enough for her when she began making grand friends.
The girl was Miss Grant, and Vanno's heart gave a bound, then seemed to contract at sight of her, so near him and alone.
He showed no trace of those battles with himself which gave Vanno's face strength and his eyes fire; yet it was clear that Angelo was a man of high ideals, and would be lost in losing them; whereas Vanno would fight on without ideals, only becoming harder.
If Vanno's cousin lived in that hotel, which could be reached only by a funicular or a picturesque mule path, it looked as if she had a wish for retirement. The priest would have liked to know if she had been at the Annonciata ever since her visit to him. Prince Della Robbia had not mentioned her, on New Year's Day, but that was no sure argument of his ignorance.
Vanno was expected to make his, Angelo's, peace with the father, who worshipped the younger, tolerated the elder, of his sons. It was Vanno's duty to describe Marie in glowing terms, to induce the Duke to feel that despite her social unimportance she was a pearl among women. But if Vanno had his own peace to make, his own pearl to praise, other interests might suffer. "Miss Grant!
"The Signora will not let me go into the room," she answered, and a look of sullen ferocity opened a door into depths of her nature where fire smouldered. She lifted her eyes to Vanno's, and for a long instant the Prince and the peasant gazed fixedly at each other.
Besides, they two would have to live apart from his people. If she were Vanno's wife, he and Angelo could not be friends. It began to seem, after all, as if there were no way out. Whether she kept her word to Marie or broke it, as Marie deserved, never, it seemed, could she and Vanno know untroubled happiness together.
And even if we were superstitious, we saw the wedding last." Vanno's "surprise" for Mary was a beautiful piece of land which he wanted to buy for her, in order to have a home where they might come sometimes, and spend a few weeks alone together in the country where they had first met and loved each other.
"It is but little I'm engaging myself to do. And it's as much for Hannaford's sake as yours. Poor Hannaford! I didn't do half enough for him when he was alive. I feel as if I owed him something now." Mary did not speak, but she shivered and very gently drew her hand away from Vanno's.
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