“Well, were you ever on the Lake of Como staying with rather an odd person--ten years ago?” he began. He had released her hands now and sat looking red and foolish and staring in front of him. Edith leaned back in her chair and regarded him with a twinkle in her eye. “Yes,” she said, “I was. I stayed at Bellagio ten years ago with my aunt and her maid--” “And that’s all?” he asked, glaring at the carpet. “No--that’s not all,” said Edith in a low voice. “It’s a long story, and I thought perhaps I wouldn’t tell you; my aunt wanted me to, but it was a very sad story, and it happened so long ago I hoped people had forgotten; although I might have known that people’s memory for the unfortunate lasts as long as their oblivion of the happier star. You have observed to-night that I am a sensible woman, Horace; what is your definition of a sensible woman?” He hesitated. “Well, hang it all, I don’t know how to define things, but I suppose I meant a woman who wasn’t foolish--never made a fuss, or scenes, or mistakes, or did--well, stupid things, you know.” “Then,” said Edith, smiling demurely, “as a girl I think I must have answered to your description of a foolish woman, Horace. I don’t know that I made scenes, but I certainly did what people call foolish things, and I behaved, as my aunt would no doubt tell you, as an idiot; at the time you mention she called me a suicidal idiot! “To begin with, I must tell you I am very susceptible to beauty. I probably shouldn’t have tolerated you nearly as well if it hadn’t been for your extremely handsome nose--you needn’t blush--it is handsome, and I know it is through no effort of your own that you have acquired this undoubted beauty. When I reached Bellagio I saw there the most beautiful human being I have ever seen in my life (you need not jog your foot, Horace); she was a woman, and she was exquisitely beautiful. If you ask my aunt, she will tell you that a girl as beautiful as that ought to be immured for life behind walls. However, she wasn’t immured, she was walking along on the shores of the lake with a loathsome man I hated, and she had a mouth that made your heart ache to look at, with the mere maddening beauty of it! She was very tall, and everything about her was slender that ought to be slender--and every curve that ought to be full was full--and her head was poised like a flower, and her skin was soft as the tenderest little petal of a new bud, and colored like light through a cloud, and her eyes were dark and stormy like a black lake in the mountains--and unutterably sad. I could go on describing her all night, but you’ve got to go at half-past ten. The absurd part of the whole story is that she was in love with the silly little scrap one might call a man, I suppose, if we had to label him as a specimen, and he--was tired (if you please) of her! Plainly, Helen of Troy, the Venus of Milo--or whatever you choose to consider within a thousand miles of her--no longer suited his convenience!