As they all strolled down the church she looked keenly at Kitty. "My dear child, how ill you look!--and your mourning! Ah, yes, of course!"--she bit her lip--"I remember--the poor, poor boy--" "Thank you!" said Kitty, hastily. "I got your letter--thank you very much. Where are you staying? We've got rooms on the Grand Canal." "Oh, but, Kitty!" cried Madame d'Estrées--"I was so sorry for you!" "Were you?" said Kitty, under her breath. "Then, please, never speak of him to me again!" Startled and offended, Madame d'Estrées looked at her daughter. But what she saw disarmed her. For once even she felt something like the pang of a mother. "You're _dreadfully_ thin, Kitty!" Kitty frowned with annoyance. "It's not my fault," she said, pettishly. "I live on cream, and it's no good. Of course, I know I'm an object and a scarecrow; but I'd rather people didn't tell me." "What nonsense, _chére enfant!_ You're much prettier than you ever were." A wild and fugitive radiance swept across the face beside her. "Am I?" said Kitty, smiling. "That's all right! If I had died it wouldn't matter, of course. But--" "Died! What do you mean, Kitty?" said Madame d'Estrées, in bewilderment. "When William wrote to me I thought he meant you had overtired yourself." "Oh, well, the doctors said it was touch and go," said Kitty, indifferently. "But, of course, it wasn't. I'm much too tough. And then they fussed about one's heart. And that's all nonsense, too. I couldn't die if I tried." But Madame d'Estrées pondered--the bright, intermittent color, the emaciation, the hollowness of the eyes. The effect, so far, was to add to Kitty's natural distinction, to give, rather, a touch of pathos to a face which even in its wildest mirth had in it something alien and remote. But she, too, reflected that a little more, a very little more, and--in a night--the face would have dropped its beauty, as a rose its petals. The group stood talking awhile on the steps outside the church. Kitty and her mother exchanged addresses, Donna Laura opened her mouth once or twice, and produced a few contorted smiles for Kitty's benefit, while Colonel Warington tipped the sacristan, found the gondolier, and studied the guide-book. As Madame d'Estrées stepped into her gondola, assisted by him, she tapped him on the arm. "Are you coming, Markham?" The low voice was pitched in a very intimate note. Kitty turned with a start. * * * * * "A casa!" said Madame d'Estrées, and she and her friend made for one of the canals that pierce the Zattere, while Colonel Warington went off for a walk along the Giudecca.