Then gradually he awoke to a full knowledge of her character.  He suffered, but otherwise it made no difference.  Finding it was then impossible to persuade her to marry him, he watched over her as best he could for some years, passing through phases of alternate hope and disgust.  His sister’s affection for him was clouded by his strange relation to the Jezebel who in her opinion had destroyed their brother.  He could not help it; he could only do his best to meet both claims upon him.  During her lingering passage to the grave, his sister had nearly severed him from Marguerite d’Estrees.  She died, however, just in time, and now here he was in Venice, passing through what seemed to him one of the ante-rooms of life, leading to no very radiant beyond.  But, radiant or no, his path lay thither.  And at the same time he saw that although Marguerite felt him to be her only refuge from poverty and disgrace, she was painfully afraid of him, and afraid of the life into which he was leading her.

* * * * *

The first guest of the afternoon proved to be Louis Harman, the painter and dilettante, who had been in former days one of the habitues of the house in St. James’s Place.  This perfectly correct yet tolerant gentleman was wintering in Venice in order to copy the Carpaccios in San Giorgio dei Schiavoni.  His copies were not good, but they were all promised to artistic fair ladies, and the days which the painter spent upon them were happy and harmless.

He came in gayly, delighted to see Madame d’Estrees in flourishing circumstances again, delivered apparently from the abyss into which he had found her sliding on the occasion of various chance visits of his own to Paris.  Warington’s doing, apparently—­queer fellow!

“Well!—­I saw Lady Kitty in the Piazza this afternoon,” he said, as he sat down beside his hostess.  Donna Laura had not yet appeared.  “Very thin and fragile!  But, by Jove! how these English beauties hold their own.”

“Irish, if you please,” said Madame d’Estrees, smiling.

Harman bowed to her correction, admiring at the same time both the toilette and the good looks of his companion.  Dropping his voice, he asked, with a gingerly and sympathetic air, whether all was now well with the Ashe menage.  He had been sorry to hear certain gossip of the year before.

Madame d’Estrees laughed.  Yes, she understood that Kitty had behaved like a little goose with that poseur Cliffe.  But that was all over—­long ago.

“Why, the silly child has everything she wants!  William is devoted to her—­and it can’t be long before he succeeds.”

“No need to go trifling with poets,” said Harman, smiling.  “By-the-way, do you know that Geoffrey Cliffe is in Venice?”

Madame d’Estrees opened her eyes.  “Est-il possible?  Oh! but Kitty has forgotten all about him.”

“Of course,” said Harman.  “I am told he has been seen with the Ricci.”