She began to tell him about Ashley, of which she had dreamed the night before, the first time in so long. It had been a good dream, all about going home to Cousin Hetty and playing dolls up in the attic again. And it was good, how good, to talk to some one about it, the first time--why, since she had left Ashley! He seemed like--like what Americans meant when they spoke of their "own home folks." Marise had never had any such. There was a real reason to give herself the fun of telling about Crittenden's too, since this Crittenden was soon to be there. She would just let herself go for once! But how she did run on when she let herself go! She hardly knew herself, chattering like this, as fast as her tongue could wag. Chattering and laughing and gesticulating--and not able to stop--the foolish way people do who have drunk too much champagne, the foolish way a canary does when you take the dark cloth from his cage and he sees that the sun is shining, the way silly girls do the first time they have a conversation with a young man. Yes, that was the way her voice sounded. Why could she not stop chattering and laughing? What must he be thinking of her? She would stop. She would change the subject. She would look at her watch and say that she was late for an engagement and must take a tram-car and leave him. Forming this plan, she led him rapidly through the gate into the Borghese Gardens where there are no tram-cars, through which lay the longest possible way home. She thought glancingly of this inconsistency, but it did not seem very important to her, because she began to be aware of something that startled her a little. She was now taking him all over the old house at Crittenden's. Yes, it was as though she had taken his hand and were leading him through those fine old rooms. She was aware of him--like that--as though their hands really did touch, warmly and actually touch--and she liked it! She who detested above everything else the slightest physical contact with another human body--who hated men for only looking at her bare arm as if they would like to touch it. Oh, well, oh, well, it was nothing--she brushed it aside, it was gone. She told herself hastily in a phrase she had heard Mme. Vallery use, that a very fine physical specimen of a man exercises a sort of unconscious magnetism on every one near him, that has no more real human significance than the way a pebble naturally rolls down hill and not up. And he certainly was what any one would call a fine physical specimen, so tall, so solidly, vigorously built, with such a long, swinging step--she glanced at him as she talked--but it wasn't his strength that gave him his individuality--it was his _quiet_ look. * * * * *