Florian Varillo raised his eyebrows smilingly.

“Rivals?  VERAMENTE!  I am not aware of them!”

“No, I should say you had too good an opinion of yourself to imagine any rival possible!” said the Comtesse, “But such a person may exist!”

Varillo yawned, and flicked a grain of dust off his waistcoat with a fastidious thumb and finger.

“Impossible!  No one could possibly fall in love with Angela now!  She is an icicle,—­no man save myself has the ghost of a chance with her!”

“Of course not,” said Sylvie impatiently, “Because she is betrothed to you.  But if things were not as they are—­”

“It would make no difference, I assure you,” laughed Varillo gaily, “Angela does not like men as a rule.  She is fondest of romance—­of dreams—­of visions, out of which come the ideas for her pictures—­”

“And she is quite passionless with all this, you think?” said Sylvie, “The ’stronger sentiment which strikes the heart like a flash of lightning, and consumes it’, as you so poetically describe it—­could never possibly disturb her peace?”

“I think not,” replied Varillo, with a meditative air, “Angela and I glided into love like two children wandering by chance into a meadow full of flowers,—­no storm struck us—­no sudden danger signal flashed from our eyes—­no trembling hurry of the blood bade us rush into each other’s arms and cling!—­nothing of this marvel touched us!—­we loved with all the calm—­but without the glory!”

His voice,—­the most fascinating quality attached to his personality,—­rose and fell in this little speech with an exquisite cadence, half sad, half sweet,—­and Sylvie, impressionable creature as she was, with her innate love of romance and poetry, was unconsciously moved by it to a faint sigh.  There was nothing to sigh for, really,—­it was just a mere melodious noise of words, in the making of which Florian Varillo was an adept.  He had not an atom of serious thought in his remark, any more than in the dainty verses he was wont to append to his pictures—­verses which he turned out with the lightest and swiftest ease, and which read like his spoken sentences, as if there were a meaning in them, when truly there was none.  But Sylvie was just then in a curious state of mind, and slight things easily impressed her.  She was in love—­and yet she was not in love.  The handsome face and figure of the Marquis Fontenelle, together with many of his undoubted good and even fine qualities, attracted her and held her in thrall, much more than the consciousness of his admiration and pursuit of her,—­but—­and this was a very interfering “but” indeed,—­she was reluctantly compelled to admit to herself that there was no glozing over the fact that he was an incorrigibly “fast”, otherwise bad man.  His life was a long record of liaisons with women,—­an exact counterpart of the life of the famous actor Miraudin.  And though there is a saying that a reformed rake makes the best husband, Sylvie was scarcely