“Frantically,” said Peter.  For caution’s sake, he kept his eyes on the golden-hazy peaks of Monte Sfionto.  “He had been in love with her, in a fashion, of course, from the beginning.  But after he met her, he fell in love with her anew.  His mind, his imagination, had been in love with its conception of her.  But now he, the man, loved her, the woman herself, frantically, with just a downright common human love.  There were circumstances, however, which made it impossible for him to tell her so.”

“What circumstances?” There was the same frank look of interrogation.  “Do you mean that she was married?”

“No, not that.  By the mercy of heaven,” he pronounced, with energy, “she was a widow.”

The Duchessa broke into an amused laugh.

“Permit me to admire your piety,” she said.

And Peter, as his somewhat outrageous ejaculation came back to him, laughed vaguely too.

“But then—?” she went on.  “What else?  By the mercy of heaven, she was a widow.  What other circumstance could have tied his tongue?”

“Oh,” he answered, a trifle uneasily, “a multitude of circumstances.  Pretty nearly every conventional barrier the world has invented, existed between him and her.  She was a frightful swell, for one thing.”

“A frightful swell—?” The Duchessa raised her eyebrows.

“Yes,” said Peter, “at a vertiginous height above him—­horribly ‘aloft and lone’ in the social hierarchy.”  He tried to smile.

“What could that matter?” the Duchessa objected simply.  “Mr. Wildmay is a gentleman.”

“How do you know he is?” Peter asked, thinking to create a diversion,

“Of course, he is.  He must be.  No one but a gentleman could have had such an experience, could have written such a book.  And besides, he’s a friend of yours.  Of course he’s a gentleman,” returned the adroit Duchessa.

“But there are degrees of gentleness, I believe,” said Peter.  “She was at the topmost top.  He—­well, at all events, he knew his place.  He had too much humour, too just a sense of proportion, to contemplate offering her his hand.”

“A gentleman can offer his hand to any woman—­under royalty,” said the Duchessa.

“He can, to be sure—­and he can also see it declined with thanks,” Peter answered.  “But it wasn’t merely her rank.  She was horribly rich, besides.  And then—­and then—!  There were ten thousand other impediments.  But the chief of them all, I daresay, was Wildmay’s fear lest an avowal of his attachment should lead to his exile from her presence—­and he naturally did not wish to be exiled.”