"It is a strange thing, but I know what you mean. I know one particular case of it in a friend of mine. No matter what he does, one always forgives him. It does not depend upon looks, either--although this actual person is abominably good-looking--it does not depend upon intelligence or character or--anything--as you say, it is just 'it.' Now you have it, and the Princess, perfectly charming though she is, has not." Sabine did not contradict him; she never was conventional, denying truths for the sake of diffidence or politeness. Moravia was beautiful and charming, but it was true she had not 'it.' "I think it applies more to men than to women," was all she said. "You were thinking of a man, then, when you spoke?" "Yes--I was thinking of a man--but it is not an interesting subject." Lord Fordyce decided that it was, but he did not continue it. "I want you to tell me all about Heronac," he requested, "and what charmed you in it enough to make you buy it suddenly like that. How did you come upon it?" "I had just arrived from America, at the end of July of 1908--four years ago--and I found, when I got to Cherbourg, that I could not join my friend, the Princess, as I had intended, because her husband had taken her off to his country place near Naples. So I hired a motor and wandered down into Brittany alone. I wanted to be alone. I was motoring along, when a violent storm came on, furious rain and wind, and just at the worst and weirdest moment, I passed Heronac, which is a few hundred yards from the edge of the present village. It stands out in the sea on a great spur of rock, entirely separated from the main land by a deep chasm about thirty feet wide, over which there was then a broken bridge which had once been a drawbridge. It was a huge, grim ruin with only a few roofed rooms, built in about the thirteenth century originally, and of course added to and modernized. The house actually standing within the great towers is of the date of Louis XIV. It stood there, a dark mass, defying the storm, although the huge waves splashed right up to the windows." "It sounds repellent." "It was--fierce and grim and repellent, and it suited my mood--so I stopped at the Inn, my old maid Simone and I, and I got permission to go and see it. The landlord of the Inn had the keys. The last of the Heronacs drank himself to death with absinthe in Paris, so the place was closed, and was no doubt for sale. '_Mais oui!_' he told us. Simone was terrified to cross the wretched bridge, with the water swirling beneath, and we left her to go back to the Inn, while the landlord's son came with me. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and was a most extraordinary day, for now it began to thunder and lighten." "I wonder you were not afraid."