“Oh, no; it is no matter for pain,” he said, as she hesitated--“only for a light-comedy smile and sigh. Fancies of that sort come and go like dreams. One must know many of them before one learns what love really is.” She turned her dark, meditative eyes away from him. On one side was the interior of the marvelous old church, gleaming with marbles and precious stones; on the other the sunshiny Piazza, with its graceful arcades and flocks of sheeny pigeons. She looked toward the last as she said: “I do not think I like such an idea.” “You?” he said, quickly. “No; how could _you_ like it? It is not meant to apply to natures like yours.” “Is it not?” she asked, with a smile. “But how can you tell that, when you know nothing of my nature?” “Do you think I know nothing of your nature?” he asked, smiling also. “If I had time, and you did not consider me too presumptuous, I might prove the contrary, for you forget all that you showed me once--all the courage, the unselfishness, the humility. But I do not forget. And has no one ever told you that you carry your soul on your lips and your heart in your eyes?” “No,” she replied, “I do not remember that any one ever told me so before--at least not exactly. But perhaps Fanny means the same thing when she tells me that my face is ‘ridiculously transparent.’” “It is only a different way of stating the same thing,” said Kyrle, and then they both laughed. “But seriously,” said he, after a moment, conscious of a very pleasant sense of _camaraderie_ with this beautiful companion, “have you no idea how you revealed yourself to me at that last meeting of ours under the orange trees? How I can see you this moment, as you were then--such a delicate, childlike creature, but with a strength of resolution against which I arrayed all _my_ strength in vain! And then, when you opened your heart and told me the sad story of your life, and how it was gratitude which made you so resolute--do you think I could ever forget anything so touching? Many a time, in the years which have passed since then, I have thought of that scene, and said to myself, ‘God bless that child wherever she may be, for she has a heart as tender as it is brave!’” Something in his voice told her that he was speaking genuinely, without the least insincerity or thought of effect, and she could not but give him a grateful glance from the same dark eyes which had impressed him with their wonderful power of expression on the occasion of which he spoke. “You are very kind,” she said, trying to speak lightly, “to have remembered an obstinate child so long!” “You were certainly very obstinate,” he said; “but how brave you were! To think of your having had the courage to go alone to the sea wall that night, and to think of the selfishness and cowardice that sent you! Pardon me for asking the question, but has no opportunity ever occurred for you to set yourself right in that matter?”