She could not think, looking at the subject dispassionately, how he could ever have wished it. An unmarried young man (she reflected) gets asked to a great many places, where the people could not be troubled with a pair. And whereas some girls may be promoted by marriage, it is _almost always_ to the disadvantage of a young man. So, why should he make a fuss about it, this young woman of the world asked herself. He ought to have been very glad that he had got his amusement and no penalty to pay. But for herself, she was sorry. Now he was gone, there was nobody to talk to, nobody to walk with, no means of amusement at all. She did not know what to do with herself, while he was speeding to dear London. What was she to do with herself? Filial piety and the enjoyment of her own thoughts--without anything to do even for her father, or any subject to employ her thoughts upon--these were all that seemed to be left to her in her life. The tourists and invalids were all gone, so that there was not even the chance of somebody turning up at the hotels; and even the Gaunts--between whom and herself there was now a gulf fixed--and the Durants, who were bores unspeakable, were going away. What was she to do? Alas, that exhilarating game which had ended so sadly for George Gaunt was not ending very cheerfully for Constance. It had made life too tolerable--it had kept her in a pleasant self-deception as to the reality of the lot she had chosen. Now that reality flashed upon her,--nay, the word is far too animated--it did not flash, nothing any longer flashed, except that invariable, intolerable sun,--it opened upon her dully, with its long, long, endless vistas. The still rooms in the Palazzo with the green _persiani_ closed, all blazing sunshine without, all dead stillness and darkness within--and nothing to do, nobody to see, nothing to give a fresh turn to her thoughts. Not a novel even! Papa’s old books upon out-of-the-way subjects, dreary as the dusty road, endless as the uneventful days--and papa himself, the centre of all. When she turned this over and over in her mind, it seemed to her that if, when she first came, instead of being seduced into flowery paths of flirtation, she had paid a little attention to her father, it might have been better for her now. But that chance was over, and George Gaunt was gone, and only dulness remained behind.