She remembered going into the library before she took off her walking things, looking round at the walls lined with books, and wondering why they had ever meant anything to her at all. “Books are no good,” she said to herself, as she went upstairs. “This also is vanity,” was what the words implied. * * * * * Miss Page looked out with a sort of surprise upon the garden steeped in sunshine. The fountain was still splashing gaily into its marble basin. In the blue overhead, two pigeons flashed and wheeled. She had been living over again the life of many years ago, with such intensity of vision and of feeling, that her present surroundings had the unreality of a dream. After a few moments, she turned the next page, knowing well what she should find, yet curious to see the words in her own handwriting of twenty years ago. “_May 15th.--We have had visitors to-day for the first time almost, since I have lived here. They were all men, too, and Frenchmen. The parents of one of them, Monsieur René Dampierre, knew Mrs. Burbage long ago, and he called and brought three friends with him._” As Anne slowly turned the pages, isolated paragraphs met her eye. “_I felt horribly shy at first, but only for a little while. They were all so nice. I suppose Frenchmen have easier manners than Englishmen, though I have had no experience of either._” “_Monsieur Fontenelle is very amusing and clever. I like his face, though he looks sarcastic, and I’m sure he can say bitter things. But he never says them to me._” “_Mrs. Burbage wanted me to describe Monsieur Dampierre in whom she is chiefly interested, because she knew him when he was a child. I found it very difficult. When I had said that he was tall, and broad-shouldered, and very fair and handsome, it seemed as though I had said nothing. It’s his smile and his changing face which make up his personality--a very charming one._” All through that summer there were short entries concerning the little colony of Frenchmen that had settled in the village. Anne glanced at them with a smile. It was a very sweet smile, scarcely sad, scarcely regretful. It was the smile of content with which a woman bends over a bowl of dried rose-leaves, and feels again the warmth of the sun, and sees the glitter and the blueness of the day when the leaves were red. IX It was grey and cheerless in Paris, while Anne sat in the sunshine of Rome. Winter had set in early, and in François’s studio the stove piled with fuel was almost insufficient to warm the great room. It was as he had suggested, the typical luxurious studio of a rich man. A broad divan under the window, was piled with cushions, and supported by them in an attitude suggestive of extreme comfort, François sat and smoked while he talked to an old friend.