‘French girls,’ replied Roland, confused by the nature of the explication in his head—­’well, they’re not English; they want a hand to shape them, otherwise they grow all awry.  My father will not have one of her aunts to live with him, so there she is.  But, my dear Nevil, I owe my life to you, and I was no party to this affair.  I would do anything to help you.  What says Renee?’

‘She obeys.’

’Exactly.  You see!  Our girls are chess-pieces until they ’re married.  Then they have life and character sometimes too much.’

’She is not like them, Roland; she is like none.  When I spoke to her first, she affected no astonishment; never was there a creature so nobly sincere.  She’s a girl in heart, not in mind.  Think of her sacrificed to this man thrice her age!’

’She differs from other girls only on the surface, Nevil.  As for the man, I wish she were going to marry a younger.  I wish, yes, my friend,’ Roland squeezed Nevil’s hand, ’I wish!  I’m afraid it’s hopeless.  She did not tell you to hope?’

‘Not by one single sign,’ said Nevil.

‘You see, my friend!’

‘For that reason,’ Nevil rejoined, with the calm fanaticism of the passion of love, ’I hope all the more . . . because I will not believe that she, so pure and good, can be sacrificed.  Put me aside—­I am nothing.  I hope to save her from that.’

‘We have now,’ said Roland, ’struck the current of duplicity.  You are really in love, my poor fellow.’

Lover and friend came to no conclusion, except that so lovely a night was not given for slumber.  A small round brilliant moon hung almost globed in the depths of heaven, and the image of it fell deep between San Giorgio and the Dogana.

Renee had the scene from her window, like a dream given out of sleep.  She lay with both arms thrown up beneath her head on the pillow, her eyelids wide open, and her visage set and stern.  Her bosom rose and sank regularly but heavily.  The fluctuations of a night stormy for her, hitherto unknown, had sunk her to this trance, in which she lay like a creature flung on shore by the waves.  She heard her brother’s voice and Nevil’s, and the pacing of their feet.  She saw the long shaft of moonlight broken to zigzags of mellow lightning, and wavering back to steadiness; dark San Giorgio, and the sheen of the Dogana’s front.  But the visible beauty belonged to a night that had shivered repose, humiliated and wounded her, destroyed her confident happy half-infancy of heart, and she had flown for a refuge to hard feelings.  Her predominant sentiment was anger; an anger that touched all and enveloped none, for it was quite fictitious, though she felt it, and suffered from it.  She turned it on Nevil, as against an enemy, and became the victim in his place.  Tears for him filled in her eyes, and ran over; she disdained to notice them, and blinked offendedly to have her sight clear of the weakness; but these interceding tears would