One morning a new mood came over Noel, and he asked Miller to introduce him. The latter complied with alacrity. Noel had no sooner bowed his acknowledgments than he looked at Mrs. Dallas, and addressed her in the Italian tongue. The light that came into her face at the familiar sounds made his heart quicken. They stood some time by the railing, the group of four,--Miller talking in a desultory way to Dallas, while Noel spoke, in animated, if somewhat halting Italian, to the young wife. There was quite a strong breeze blowing; and some dark ribbons, which tied her fur collar, fluttered and sounded on the air. She held to the rail with both little smooth-gloved hands; and her heavy cloth dress clung close about her, and was blown backward in strong, swaying folds. They talked of Italy, where Noel had once lived for a while, and of pictures, art, and music, for which she had an enthusiasm which made the subjects as interesting to Noel as his greater knowledge made them to her. He found her a genuine girl in her feelings, and at once perceived her absolute inexperience of the world. Her convent breeding came out frequently in a sort of quaint politeness of manner, and it provoked him a little to find that he was being treated with a sort of deference due to a superior in age or in experience. He felt himself aged indeed in comparison with her vibrating youth and the innocence of her simple little life, which, up to this point, had plainly been that of a child; and he dreaded to think how soon and how suddenly she might grow old. She seemed in a world of mystery now, as one who had utterly lost her bearings, and was too dazed to see where she was or what were the objects and influences that surrounded her. Out of this shadow his presence seemed for the moment to have lifted her; and as he talked to her of these subjects, round which the whole ardor of her nature centred, she seemed a different creature. The restraint and severity disappeared from her manner, she forgot herself,--her recent self that was so strange to her,--and over and over again he looked far into the clear depths of her golden eyes. More than once he glanced at Dallas to see if he showed any disrelish of this talk, carried on in his presence in a foreign tongue; but he was evidently not concerned about it in the least. He smoked his eternal cigarettes, and answered in monosyllables the remarks that Miller was making. He did not look bored, for that expression implies a capability of being interested; and that he seemed not to possess, at least so far as Noel's experience went, and Miller's confirmed it. III. Noel had been at home a month. He had opened his law office and gone hard to work, and his friends complained that they saw but little of him. He had learned from the Dallases, before parting with them at the wharf, that they were expecting to go to housekeeping in his own city, and he had asked them to send him their address when they were established.