He recognised Raphael with respect and pleasure when authority reassured him it _was_ Raphael. Also he probably knew more about the history of art than did she. Otherwise it was Athalie who led, instinctively, toward what gallery and library held as their best. Her favourite lingering places were amid the immortal Chinese porcelains and the masterpieces of the Renaissance. And thither she frequently beguiled Clive,--not that he required any persuading to follow this young and lovely creature who ranged the full boundaries of her environment, living to the full life as it had been allotted her. Wholesome with that charming and rounded slenderness of perfect health there yet seemed no limit to her capacity for the enjoyment of all things for which an appetite exists--pleasures, mental or physical--it did not seem to matter. She adored walking; to exercise her body delighted her. Always she ate and drank with a relish that fascinated; she was mad about the theatre and about music:--and whatever she chanced to be doing she did with all the vigour, intelligence, and pleasure of which she was capable, throwing into it her entire heart and soul. It led to temporary misunderstandings--particularly with the men she met--even in the small circle of friends whom she received and with whom she went about. Arthur Ensart entirely mistook her until fiercely set right one evening when alone with him; James Allys also listened to a curt but righteously impassioned discourse which he never forgot. Hargrave's gentlemanly and suavely villainous intentions, when finally comprehended, became radically modified under her coolly scornful rebuke. Welter, fat and sentimental, never was more than tiresomely saccharine; Ferris and Lyndhurst betrayed symptoms of being misunderstood, but it was a toss-up as to the degree of seriousness in their intentions. [Illustration: "Once more, the old happy companionship began."] The intentions of men are seldom more serious than they have to be. But they all were helplessly, hopelessly caught in the magic, gossamer web of Athalie's beauty and personal charm; and some merely kicked and buzzed and some tried to rend the frail rainbow fabric, and some struggled silently against they knew not what--themselves probably. And some, like Dane, hung motionless, enmeshed, knowing that to struggle was futile. And some, like Clive, were still lying under her jewelled feet in the very centre of the sorcery, so far silent and unstirring, awaiting to see whether the grace of God would fall upon them or the _coup-de-grace_ that ended all. Eventually, however, like all other men, Clive gave signs of life and impatience. "_Can't_ you love me, Athalie?" he said abruptly one night, when they had returned from the theatre and he had already taken his leave--and had come back from the door to take it again more tenderly. The girl let him kiss her.